The Executioner Chronicles: Alternities
by Nightheart
Summary: Chapter 7: The longest chapter so far. Being manditorily enclosed in tight quarters with a man she is less than objective about makes Relena edgy, especially when he invades her space. The Executioner answers a challenge.
1. Shadow Dancing

Merod Volvf, the Representative for the L2 colony cluster and one of Relena Darlian's top supporters on the Council sat at his solid oak desk in his private offices at his estate looking over Miss Relena's proposal for what she termed "Planned Independence" and sighed. The girl was one smart cookie. He was surprised that no one had ever thought of something like this before, it was so simple yet so elegant. If it passed, no _when_ it passed, it would save on a lot of bloodshed in future generations. No longer would precious lives and resources be lost on wars for independence.

Miss Relena's proposal was for the Mars Terraformation Project, a fledging step out into the stars and Humankind's first attempt to settle another world. Her reasoning was, and she had a very good point, that wars for independence in the past were wasteful. She felt that independence and equal representation and sovereignty should be _given_ to colony settlements instead of withheld creating oppression and resentment. Cooperation, she maintained, was the key to a stable lifestyle. There was a difference between doing something because you wanted to and doing something because you are compelled to do it, of the two every person would naturally choose the former over the latter. It was like the difference between having a friend who helps you and keeping a slave who serves you. One may dominate and get results but the ones being dominated will never lift a finger to help you when you are in need unless you use force to make them do so. This in turn means you must exert more will to keep the slave under your thumb. It was far better to work together for mutual cooperation and gain, that way both sides would benefit.

Her proposal was a plan for the future. She outlined that eventually the Terraformation Project would be successful and that mars citizens, who would by this time have been there for generations, would be self-sufficient and no longer require assistance from Earth and the outlying colonies to survive. Instead of demanding tribute from the citizens for creating the settlements and treating a bustling society like so much field labor, thus causing resentment and unrest, the Earth Sphere Unified Nation should give the now still young and unsettled colony a goal to work for. She proposed a set of standards to be met by the young colony settlement, things like a certain degree of agricultural development, decent housing and a stable government, before the colony could be granted its independence and open free trade negotiations on its own behalf. This she claimed would bypass the needless battles for independence, by giving it freely once a settlement had reached maturity the Council would create a useful friend and ally where it would once have made a resentful enemy.

Needless to say, all of the colony cluster and moon base representatives were unanimously for it. There were however many conservative Councilmen who wielded a lot of power who were concerned about the impact of an unknown like this into a system that had, for them, worked quite well. They were for the most part, earther-types. They spent their entire lives on Earth and had never been to outer space, they didn't understand what it was like to slave away at a difficult and wearisome existance in a positively hostile environment, trying to eke out a meagre living for a land that was only marginally grateful. The Colonies had only just recently gotten a full and equal voice on the council, and gotten it at great cost of life to both sides. They were eager to avoid future bloodshed and a proposal like this one was the exact way to do it.

It's genius, he thought, reading over the proposal once more, gleefully. Why didn't anyone think of it before? A plan like this can have everyone looking forward to a future of prosperity and peace. At last, we will know peace in our time. If only we could win over those last few conservatives to make the proposal unanimous.

The Earl of Warchester, Cerrid Velsink was the one who worried him the most. He was one of the few aristocrats left over from the Romafeller Foundation that had managed to retain his position and all of his authority. It was also rumored that the Earl was one of Duke Dermails old cronies and that he had also been on the olds goats war committee. He wasn't certain it was true, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was…he was one sneaky old bastard. He never came out and said anything accusatory outright about Miss Relena or any of her ideas but he was always _there_, in the background, making _insinuations_. He'd suggested, several times, in that oh so reasonable voice of his that perhaps the nineteen year old Vice Foreign Minister was a trifle too young and tender to be spending all of her time closed away in council meetings when she should be out with her friends enjoying her youth. She was his only major rival as far as power and influence went, and like Duke Dermail before him, Merod was sure the man was up to something. Relena never said so in so many words, but Merod also got the feeling she agreed with him, for he had caught her watching the Earl through narrowed eyes when she thought no one was looking. 

I also wish I knew what the man was up to, he thought worriedly. He hated to think that a fellow council man could stoop to suck low practices, but as the date drew nearer and more people went over to miss Relena's side, the attempts on Miss Relena's life had taken a dramatic increase. Then again, If wishes were horses beggars would ride.

He was about to turn his attention to another document when he got a sudden chill up his spine, like he was no longer alone in his room. The room was suddenly plunged into darkness and the shadows seemed to shift and move on their own.

"Guards?" he called. "Guards!"

"Your guards cannot save you from my shadow," a voice whispered from the darkness. It had an odd hollow sounding quality to it, as if it came from the bottom of a well…or a grave. 

A hand shot out from the darkness, it's grip implacable as a steel vice. Merod screamed and called for help.

"Yes. Yes. Scream all you like. No one will hear you beyond my sphere of silence," the echoingly eerie told him. The shadows surrounding him seemed to slide about, like a living thing. Parting to reveal the shape of a man like a curtain drawn aside. Merod must have been in a state of panic by then for he could have sworn that the man had a faint glow surrounding him, that his eyes were glowing with an unnatural light that had nothing to do with reflection and nothing to do with personality.

"Your life essence now belongs to me, said the voice, with an air that said the outcome was never in doubt. "And oh yes…Cerrid Velsink says to tell you hello and goodbye."

And with that, the man with the unshakable grip brought his left hand forward. There was a mark on it, a symbol that almost seemed to glow luminescently as it was brought up to his forehead, right where the third eye would have been. Then Merod could not have begun to explain what happened. 

There was an odd wrenching feeling, and he began to start feeling weak and dizzy. In vain he struggled against the force, against the man holding him captive. His strength felt as though it were being drained from him. He was getting weaker and weaker until all he could do was hang there, suspended by the one armed grip of the assassin (which for a man of Merods weight and girth was quite an accomplishment in and of itself) as his life was slowly drained away from him. His breathing got shallower and he felt his heartbeat slow, pounding in his ears…low…muffled…beat….beat…….beat……….beat……………..beat.

Silence.

* * *
    
    The unhappy visage of Lady Une, the head of the Preventors, appeared on the screen when Noin accepted the call.

"Hello Une," said Noin. "I can see by the expression on your face that this isn't a pleasure call."

"I need you and Milliardo down at headquarters immediately," she said. 

"Immediately, that bad huh?" said Zechs, appearing beside her. The two of them had returned from Mars a month ago at Une's behest…actually it was at Relena's pleading look, her brother was the last of the family she'd had and Noin was one of the few people she trusted. After getting shot at and almost stabbed and almost blown up in the course of her job, Relena had been just a little bit on edge. She said that having her big brother around to keep her safe made her feel better. Zechs had been pleased and surprised, he figured that with their recent history that she would sooner see him as far away from her as possible. But he had underestimated Relena's compassion, belief and capacity for forgiveness. 

"You might want to make it quick, we do have a slight situation," said Une.

"Oh really? What kind of situation?" asked Zechs riffling a hand through his platinum locks. He hated it when Une said situation, that usually meant there were bodies involved.

"The no longer breathing kind," said Une succinctly.

"We're on our way," said Noin. "Oh! And Miss Relena is still safe?"

"We just checked in with Sally, and she says that Relena is in perfect condition…although she did remark that she should take a break or she's going to work herself into a breakdown. No threats, no guns, no bombs, although with the information Quatre just gave us, that's subject to change and quickly."

"Understood," said Noin. 

Preventors HQ was the usual "hive of activity" (meaning it was a screaming mad house) when Wind and Fire arrived. Une was waiting for them, surprisingly enough Quatre was standing behind her wearing a Preventors uniform and his "pensive face" he only got that look when he was really worried about something.

"Hey Quatre," said Noin to her young comrade. "I thought you were back on L4 for the business meeting."

"This concerns that," said Quatre. 

"We shouldn't talk here," said Une. "My office. It's quieter."

They followed the brisk lady to her office where Mariemaia sat in one of the comfy office chairs. Mariemaia had this habit of popping in unexpectedly and being very difficult to remove. Mariemaia had taken to clinging to Une and/or Relena whenever she could. She hadn't had any real gestures of kindness in all of her seven short years and now that Lady Une and Miss Relena had shown her what real love and family was like Mariemaia couldn't seem to get enough of it. She'd follow them around like a lost puppy until one of them finally paid attention to her. Une had had to banish the child from her office just to get some work done on occasion. Une looked at her ward sternly and said

"Mariemaia, what have I told you about coming to my office in the daytime while I am working?"

"Not unless it was an emergency," she answered. "But this time it really _is_ an emergency Lady."

"Very well then, what is it?" asked Une tolerantly. It wasn't her fault the child was starved for real love and affection.

"I-I well, I kinda…that is, I…" she stuttered. Mariemaia looked guilty about something. "I was eavesdropping on a phone call made by that snake Earl Worcheschire—"

"Warchester," corrected Une absently. "And he's not a snake, he's a very influential government official." Although the expression on Lady Une's face said she privately agreed with her daughter.

"Yeah, and he was talking on a secure line to someone whos voice I couldn't make out. Anyway, he was talking about special assassins an' stuff and he said that 'all twelve packages have come through the gate.' Then he mentioned something about 'the Winner brat' and Miss Relena! I think he's sending assassins out after them."

Quatre grew even more pensive looking and murmured 

"That falls in line with everything I've been able to pick up so far."

"Okay, let's not panic," said Une calmly. "We need to get everyone up to speed so we can go about putting out this fire in a more organized manner. Mariemaia, I want you to find Duo and Hilde and tell them that I want them to come to my office and guard you. You're now a witness and we might need your testimony later. Everyone else, we'll need to use the receiving room, it should be large enough to hold everyone."

Mariemaia scampered off to find Duo. She liked Duo, he always told her the funniest jokes. Noin, Milliardo, Quatre and Une proceeded on to the receiving/conference room. It was a comfortable room with plush couches in beige, tasteful art-deco prints on the walls, and soft berber carpeting underneath a custom made rug in matching neutral tones. Noin and Milliardo took the shorter couch on one side of the coffee table Quatre sat in the larger couch on the other side and Une sat in the high backed chair at the head of the coffee table.

"Now, let's get down to business," said Une, not wasting time on formalities. She rarely did if she could help it, Milliardo and Noin appreciated that about her. "The subject was located this morning in his office, slumped over his office desk. Merod Volvf, a representative from the L2 cluster."

"I recall Relena mentioning him. He's one of her staunchest allies," said Milliardo. "Cause of death?"

"Unknown," said Une. At Noin and her mate's looks of sursprise Une nodded gravely. "The autopsy came out clean, there was no sign of a struggle, no stab wounds, bullet wounds, or marks of strangulation. The blood work-up came out clean, no poison or disease. There's no record of heart conditions in his family. He was a healthy man, still vigorous even and he just suddenly died."

Noin examined the coroners report that Une had handed her, Milliardo reading over her shoulder. 

"The coroner put down heart failure as the cause of death," Noin noted. "Volvf was getting on in his years, it's not unheard of for a heart to simply go out on a person at his age."

"But you see there's the catch…" said Une. "He wasn't the only one."

"What do you mean?" asked Zechs sharply. 

"Merod had four guards posted outside of his office that night. They're all dead."

"Dead how?" asked Noin, growing nervous. 

"Suffocation. But there was no sign of a struggle against an attacker. Any kind of gas would have left a residue on the walls and a scub turned up nothing. The victims were clutching their _own_ throats as though they were choking, but there was nothing for them to choke _on_." Une Sighed and massaged her head.

"There was another victim, located in L4," said Quatre quietly. "He was also influential, he was also a supporter of Miss Relena and myself. I was staying at a hotel in preparation to leave for my council meeting this morning and I felt a darkness, a chilling cold horror of death and remorseless hunger. It was the single most disturbing thing I've ever sensed with my Empathy before. It felt…inhuman. I went out into the hall to track it down and see what was going on and I saw the bodies of the guards posted outside Councilor Yerith's rooms. I reached one of the men in time to see him breathe his last, he was struggling against something, something was choking him…but there was nothing there. Nothing but that horrible dark presence. I heard the man's last words."

"What were they Quatre?" asked Noin. 

"The shadows are alive."

"How can that be? It makes no sense. Shadows do not live, they _can't_. They're only the absence of light," said Noin. "He was near death, he must have been hallucinating."

"Then what was that thing I sensed?" countered Quatre. "Anyway, I tried to get into The Councilors rooms, but the door wouldn't open no matter how hard I kicked at it. I could hear nothing inside the room and that made me even more disturbed so I went and called for security but by the time we got there, he was already dead. I called Lady Une and she told me about Merod so I said I'd catch the next shuttle to Earth and come down to help."

"And let me guess, his death looked like natural causes too, right?" said Noin.

"That's what the coroner put down," said Quatre. "But I just _know_ that their deaths were anything but natural…which is why I did a little digging on the ride over."

"Oh?" said Une, looking interested.

"Yes. As I'm sure you have guessed my company does a lot of reasearch, either funding it or developing a product outright. It's one of the reasons the Winner corporation is so successful, they want to own everything that isn't bolted down or on fire."

Noin chuckled.

"Well anyways, Winner corporation, has in the past under my father, funded certain researches into science…black projects if you will. One of them I discovered was ah, reseach into transdimensional travel."

"Transdimentional? Translation please?" Said Noin wryly.

"Well you see, it's been hypothesized that there are alternate dimensions to our own, places where the time line was skewed and things happen differently, history happens alternately," explained Quatre. "It's also been thought that it might be possible to travel in between dimentions. Well, it's not only possible, it's been done. My company developed what we call an "Alternagate" that opens a small rift in time and space and allows people to pass through. We've got all of the patents, but I deemed it unwise to go mucking about in someone else's timeline, so all use and further research has been banned."

"Yeah, what does this have to do with these murders?"

"Everything," said Quatre. "I contacted Heero."

"Yuy? How'd you drag him out from whatever rock it is he found to hide under?" inquired Zechs arcly. Noin shot him a reproving glare.

"And as a favor to me he did a little digging in someone else's databanks and it turns out that that some other company a little less scrupulous has been mucking about with the alternagates. Crover company, who gave such a _generous_ donation to Cerrid Velsink to get him elected, who has profited greatly from certain bills passed by the man, has the secret to communicating between worlds, although they can't travel to them yet."

"Yet," came another voice just behind them. There leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed across his chest stood Heero Yuy. "I got that other information you asked about Quatre. It seems that there have been some communications made recently between Crover Corp and Mister Velsink. I wasn't able to retrieve all of it, their encryption systems are too good, but I've got enough to give us a starting point."

"What is it Heero?" asked Quatre, looking down at the code garbage filling up the pages Heero had handed to him.

"A conversation between Velsink and The head of Crover Corp. Velsink is asking about when the twelve packages from the alternity are going to start going after their targets," he said.

"That sounds like the conversation Mariemaia overheard," remarked Une. 

"Apparently Quatre and Relena are on the list, although Relena is the main one. Velsink doesn't like her Planned Independence proposal at all."

"He sees it as a threat," said Milliardo absently as he studied the code, decrypting it in his head. "Is there any thing else?"

"Yes. The assassins coming over from the other alternaty are supposedly invulnerable. Their methods of assassination are untraceable and undetectable."

"No body's invulnerable," said Noin. "And as for the undetectable part…" she gestured to the reports. "We can see for ourselves that that isn't true."

"Hold on a minute Noin," cautioned Zechs. "What if the guards hadn't died along with the Councilors and Quatre hadn't sensed whatever it was he sensed? The circumstances wouldn't have seemed unusual enough to warrant calling in the Preventors and the deaths would have been ruled out as natural causes and dismissed."

"Exactly," Une said. "Very observant of you. It's impossible for us to tell which are deaths by natural causes and which ones are the product of these new assassins from the other Alternaty. We don't even know how they operate and so can't anticipate when and where they will strike, aside of the fact that they want to see Miss Relena dead."

"I was not aware of this," said Heero frowning darkly. "I presume someone is guarding her."

"Sally Po is over thereright now," said Une. "Although Relena won't let Wufei within ten feet of her."

Heero looked puzzled until Noin said

"She and the China man don't precisely get along. I believe the last time she saw him she told him precisely where he could shove his Gundam. They haven't gotten on since the incident with Dekim Barton where she discovered one of her "allies" was on the wrong side. Bad blood there."

"I see," said Heero. He didn't suppose he could really blame her, Relena was the type who took loyalty seriously. Still, he couldn't let her walk around with only Sally watching her back. Sally Po was good, there was no question of that…but she wasn't assassin trained. 

"I'll go see to my sister then," said Milliardo. "If there are assassins from another Earth hanging about with Relena top on their list of targets I want to see to her safety personally."

"Good suggestion Zechs," said Une. "You and Noin join Sally and escort Miss Relena to all of her functions. Heero, Quatre, I want you two to find a way to open up communications with the government of this other Alternaty and see how they've handled the problem. See if they'd be willing to lend up some assistance as one Earth to another, but please…do it quietly."

"Right," said Quatre brightly before Heero could say another word.

* * *

Relena Darlian greeted Sally Po, the Preventor assigned to guard her for the day, cheerfully; in blissful ignorance of all the things going on behind her back to keep her safe. She reasoned that, even with the recent upswing in assassination attempts made on her she must not be doing too badly…Heero Yuy had yet to make an appearance. That was when she knew that the shit had hit the fan. When Heero showed up to save her life…otherwise it was business as usual.

"Good Morning Miss Relena," said Sally. Relena liked Sally, she was friendly, confidant, capable and always willing to share the latest bit of gossip with a girl who was always working and so therefore always out of the loop.

"Good morning Miss Sally," Relena said cheerfully. "Anything new and interesting happen while I was away?"

"You could say that," said Sally, hedgingly. "So…how was your meeting yesterday?"

"It wasn't as bad as I was expecting," she said optimistically. "But not as good as I was hoping. There are still those few stubborn old goats who refuse to see that things will have to change if peace is to be maintained. They seem to think that nothing should ever change! It so frustrating sometimes. But, the good news is, I did get two more on my side. It's small but it's another step. I just have to keep trying."

"Good for you," said Sally encouragingly. "That's the way to do it, one step at a time."

"Where's my brother and Miss Noin? They're usually here by now to say hello," asked Relena.

"They got tied up by some things down at HQ, they won't be able to drop by until later today."

"Oh, I hope everything's okay."

Sally sighed. She might as well tell her instead of putting it off.

"Well, the truth is…everything's not okay. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but, during the night two councilmen died. Councilor Volvf and Councilor Yerith. I'm sorry."

"Oh…Oh my," said Relena sadly, sitting down slowly. "Why I just talked to Councilor Volvf earlier yesterday…he was very enthusiastic about that proposal I made. And…"

and the tears started welling up in her eyes. Followed by sniffles then full fledged sobs. Relena was a very emotional creature. Sally patted her shoulder, letting her cry herself out. They were there for twenty minutes before Relena gathered herself up enough to dry her eyes one last time and take a deep shuddering breath. Then she straightened her suit, composed her face (which was still splotchy from her recent crying) and siad

"Okay, I think I'm better now. We should get going."

And they did.

"You know Miss Relena," said Sally on their way out to the limousine after scouting the area in and around said conveyance carefully. "You really should let me bring Wufei in to work with me. He's not so bad once you get to know him, really."

Relena had that stubborn expression on her face.

"Oh come on, he's been working with me for the past three years, he's trustworthy. Can't you let old enmities go to rest?"

Relena seemed to consider it for a moment then said,

"Well, I've forgiven about everyone else…I guess I can forgive him too. But if he insults me like that again I won't be held responsible for the mess I'll make of his face," she warned.

Sally chuckled and said

"I'll tell him."

The atmosphere inside the council chamber was subdued, even sad. The loss of two of its more respected members was a blow to everyone and Relena wasn't the only one showing visible signs of grief. The few women there were on the council were blotchy-faced just like Relena and the men, even though they showed no signs of weeping, were obviously just as saddened. Relena was privately outraged to note that Earl Cerrid Velsink was using the tragedy to his own advantage, was manipulating them in a weakened emotional state. Of course she acted quickly to counterbalance the little snake.

Honestly! Is there no level that man won't sink to! It's enough to make me sick! she thought in private outrage. Then the Earl announced that he would be hosting a memorial service for their two departed comrades later that evening, fully formal.

Which I'm sure he'll be using to further his own ends, she thought in annoyance. I'll just have to make sure I'm in attendance. Not only because it's the right thing to do but because I need closure.

She also needed to be there to balance Miset Velsink's influence and temper his greedy enthusiasm. Relena got the sense that her esteemd collegue fancied himself becoming much more than a mere duke and councilman. He probably thought that if he gained enough influence he could lull his supporters into complacency and quietly take over the council. Hah! That ploy was even older than the joke "why did the chicken cross the road?" Even so, it had worked in the past…Relena would just have to make sure it didn't work there in the present.

* * *
    
    The ball room of Velsink's mansion was done completely in polished marble. The wet bar to one side was a long marble counter that, it was said, had taken an entire construction crew and all of their machinery to lever into place. It hadn't been moved since it was put in .The polished marble of the floor itself was so shiny that Relena could see her reflection in it. There were polished marble faux columns built into the wall that "supported" the ceiling which was tiled in more marble. An enormous crystal and brass chandelier hung from the ceiling with matching sconces in between the faux columns.

Relena herself was dressed in a conservative gown of black silk, edged with beading to catch the light. Personally, she didn't like the color black on her…it was one of those colors she could wear…but not wear well. Quatre, or Dorothy would look better in the color, Relena didn't have the hair color suitable for it, although she could pull off sapphires and emeralds, any of the deeper colors on the cool side of the spectrum even royal purple in the right light. She was surprised to note that Lady Une actually looked good in deep purple, not many people could pull of purple and make it look good. But as for her, she liked lighter colors, light blue, white, grey, peach… Black was so depressing. That was probably why it was the color of mourning.

Quatre, escorting her to the memorial party, was dressed as somberly as she in a conservative dark suit with a black silk shirt under the equally dark jacket. He was looking around, as if worried about something. Relena slipped her arm into his and squeezed his forearm lightly, she was glad she wasn't going to this party by herself for once…she needed a good friend right then.

"It'll be alright," she murmured reassuringly. She gestured to the various Preventors mingling among the guests, including Sally, who had insisted on wearing her uniform because "there was no way she was going to subject herself to a too-tight- too-constricting dress and those torture devices trying to pass themselves off as footwear."

Relena privately agreed with her. It had been a while since she'd been to a formal event and she knew that her feet would be killing her by the end of the night.

Quatre smiled tightly back at her. He was worried about something…Well, she couldn't blame him, Cerrid Velsink was really something to worry about in her opinion. Still, she wasn't certain what the big idea was with all of the Preventors. Sure, there had been a few more attacks on her than usual…but Relena had counted seventeen faces she recognized as belong to Preventor personnel mixed in among the council elite.

But I haven't seen Heero, so things must not be _that_ bad, she thought. 

He was her walking, sometimes talking trouble barometer. If Une wasn't worried enough to call in Heero things were still manageable. There was no need for her to panic. Besides, I should just stick to what I know I can do, if there is going to be an attack here at this party, there isn't anything I can do about it. That's what the Preventors are here for.

With that Relena set herself to her own task with determination. Said task being the monitoring of Velsink's activities and the countering of his insinuations and the soothing of some troubled councilors. She strolled on Quatre's arm, listening into the conversation and inserting a well-timed comment here and there…

*

"I'm in position," Quatre murmured from his position beside Relena. There was a small mike in his tie pin, sensitive to pick up his voice, on the other end was Heero, who was monitoring the situation from a curtained balcony on the second floor. 
    
    "I'm getting vague interference…" the voice in his tiny earpiece said fuzzily, the static cleared. "There. Signal clear. Status?"

"Relena's safe here with me, don't worry Heero. She won't leave my side."

"See that she doesn't," he said distinctly. "Now of all times would be a bad time for her to go haring off on one of those sudden notions she gets. We can't afford to let her out from under our guard."

"Right."

Quatre had granted Heero access to the labs at the Winner Corporation that the alternagates had been developed in. He had opened up communications with the President of the equivalent to the Earth Sphere Unified Nation in that alternate reality, President Takahashi, and found out precisely what the assassins that had been bought by Relena's covert enemy really were. It was the only time he had ever seen Heero blanch. 

The assassins brought over from that alternity were some kind of experiment in enhancing human capabilities sort of a super-human. The "Nightsiders" as the assassins had named themselves, were the product of a program to create the perfect assassins, untraceable, undetectable, deadly and unstoppable. The experiment had succeeded, beyond their creator's ability to control. The group responsible for them had been over-run by them.

Quatre wasn't precisely certain what made them so powerful, the president had been a little vague about that, but when he got down to the numbers of people who had been killed and injured trying to restrain them Quatre's eyes had bugged out of his head. On one attempt to kill a Nightsider Assassin, the President had sent a team of twenty of his most elite soldiers in full riot gear with the most high powered portable plasma sidearms that could be brought to bear at the time…five had made it back alive and of those five two died later in the hospital. In their alternity the Nightsiders required some kind of "vital energy" to remain alive and powerful. In the case of the experimental subjects the only viable form of energy they could absorb that would allow them to continue living and feed themselves had to come from other human beings. Understandable in a way, if the only purpose that these Assassins had been created for was to kill other people… but unfortunately that meant that these Nightsiders, now that they had broken loose from their creators went about killing people left and right to absorb their energies. These energies were what fueled their enhanced capabilities, from what Quatre understood.

They would have been completely unstoppable but for one thing. The president had one of them on his side. He called it (Quatre didn't know if it was a man or a woman) the Executioner. President Takahashi signed Mandates for the death of a Nightsider Assassin "Draining" innocent civilians and the Executioner hunted them down and carried out the execution. President Takahashi had said that it was the only way he had found to stop them without sending half of his forces to their deaths by going against one of the Nightsiders.

"Heero?" Quatre murmured when no one was looking. "Do you think they're really _that_ bad?"

"I wish we weren't going to find out," he replied.

"Do you see anything yet?"

"No. No unfamiliar faces have been identified Quatre."

"Good, that means the assassins aren't here yet. I knew that mucking about in alternate dimensions was going to be nothing but trouble."

Heero didn't say anything further, he never did. Quatre turned his attention back to Relena. It wasn't such a bad place to turn his attentions really, there was no denying that she was a lovely young woman. It was just too bad she was already spoken for (whether she knew it or not), if Heero hadn't been so obviously trying to deny his deep feelings for her, Quatre just might have tried his luck at winning her heart. But no, he would never betray a friend like that. And besides, Relena was one of the very few friends he had that he could be completely honest with, that was worth far more than gold in any situation. He couldn't betray her own trust in him either.

"Don't you think so Quatre?" Relena asked, turning to him. What had she been talking about? Oh yes, the Treaty with the Nation of Vanta. She'd probably just asked whether he thought that the exchange of natural resources for skilled manual labor was a good example of cooperation between tow nation in the spirit of the alliance.

"Yes, it was wise of the council to agree with it. Sometimes getting fresh produce out on some of the outlying colonies is difficult," Quatre said glibly. Judging by the grateful look Relena shot him, his answer was precisely what she'd been needing.

She continued on with whatever point it was she'd been making. Quatre continued scanning the room for trouble.

Trouble wasn't long in showing itself. 

Just as that pompous ass Cerrid Velsink began some long winded speech about their dear departed comrade and how he had tried his best to ensure the peace and prosperity of his constituents as well as look out for the best interests of the Earth Sphere as a whole, there came a faint rumbling sound. Then, almost without warning, the solid marble wall that separated the ballroom from the gardens exploded inward, but Quatre's well trained ears had not detected the sound of an explosive device. Was he losing his touch? There was not time for further pondering as a streak of light shot out from the misty shadows of the hole in the wall and struck the stem of the chandelier, the part anchoring it In place on the ceiling. The guests started screaming and panicking, stampeding this way and that, trying to get out of the room. Well dressed women were sherieking as the room was plunged into semi-darkness. 

Quatre had Relena securely in tow as he tried to make his way over to the place where Heero was waiting. 

"Everybody down!" shouted Lady Une. She whipped out her gun and started shooting at the shadows dancing in front of the hole. She'd already marshaled her Preventors into herding the panicked and terrified guests out of the ball room but things were far from quiet or calm or controlled.

Out of the shadows another flash of light, like a ball of blue lightning, shot out and struck Lady Une square in the chest. She fell backwards, gun skittering across the floor from a limp grip. Sally was at her side seconds later, checking for vital signs, her partner Wufei standing over both of them, gun ready, prepared to lay in cover fire.

"She's…burned," said Sally in bewilderment. "But she still breathing. Preventor Ice, call in a medic unit!"

Wufei opened fire on the shadows before Sally could stop him. Wufei had a protective streak a mile wide, and his sense of honor was deeply offended by seeing a woman hurt, no matter that her occupation was bound to include danger. 

"….keep it moving people…one at a time that's right…"

"…most important is that you remain calm…"

The Preventors were handling the situation rather well, all things considered.

Quatre looked around for Heero, all he was getting in his earpeice was static.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Wufei was still firing. Whatever it was that was lurking there in the shadows had to be dead by then…

Quatre heard Relena gasp…

He looked over at the shadowed corner, the shadows seemed suddenly alive, shifting moving as if they had a life of their own. It was imposible, but it he saw one of the Preventors suddenly start choking in nothing. There was nothing there but shadows and darkness.

"It must be a gas," he muttered. If that was the case it wouldn't be long before the choke gas reached their position, he had to get Relena out of there, before—

"Relena Peacecraft…" there came a voice. It was like it came from all around them. It was resonant, empty sounding…chill as a wind across a grave. "I have come for you."

Relena was wearing that determined 'I _will_ get to the bottom of this' look. Quatre was certain that if she tried she wouldn't like what she found there.

"I'm h-mph!" 

Quatre clamped a hand over her mouth and secured the other arm around her waist, lifting her from her feet and dragging her away from the assassin who called her name. She struggled at first.

"It's just me," Quatre reassured her. "Please calm down. You have to keep quiet."

He released her, she glared at him and said

"I'm not afraid of-"

"You should be," he told her. "Miss Relena, you don't know how dangerous these assassins are."

"I've come for Relena Peacecraft," said the voice. "If she is not brought to me immediately the entire crowd will not last the night."

That did it. The assassin knew precisely which nerve to touch to spur Relena into an appearance. Her own death was one thing, someone else's was another matter entirely. Relena went to answer the Nightsiders challenge personally…

"Oh no you don't," said Quatre, re-clamping an arm around the headstrong girl's waist effectively pinning her arms.

"Lemme go!" she demanded kicking and struggling ineffectually. "Quatre!"

"Hold still, and don't call attention to yourself Miss Relena. I'm sorry to have-urg- restrain you –uhf!- like this –ow!- but it's the onl-urg- way to -erf- Keep you –gurgh- from –hey watch it- danger." To give her credit, Relena was a fighter and she struggled for all she was worth, but in the end, Quatre was taller and stronger than she was. Lord knows Heero would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you, he added silently.

"Quatre, let go! Qua-_tre_!" she demanded, still kicking.
    
    "I'm sorry Miss Relena, but I can't. Please, won't you hold still?"

"No I won't! I- Mph mrph mphhh mrrrrrph, mph _mrph_!" He had to clamp his hand over her mouth again.
    
    It was too late, the assassin hiding in the shadows had noticed her, struggling and kicking.

"There you are…" Suddenly the hole in the wall surrounded by rubble and motes of settling plaster lit up. Quatre, witnessing it with his own eyes, could hardly believe what he saw. There, where the shadows had hung the thickest stood the outline of a person…and it was glowing luminecently. The light surrounding the body was pulsating hungrily and the shadows seemed to shift and slither about him, shadows and light converged in a twisting miasma framing the outline of a person. It was a man, figure slim as a blade, not tall and not short, broad-shouldered, muscular.

The shadows surrounding Quatre seemed to suddenly thicken and coalesce…he swore he felt something touch his neck. 

Darkness.—

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The cracking noise of a shotgun rang out from over head. Relena looked down at the unconscious Quatre, there were marks on his neck, but there had been no one to put them there. She hadn't done it, of that she was sure. She'd been pulling in the other direction.

His shots were right on the mark, the assassin jerked from the force of the blow his torso rolling backwards.

The room was filled with the sound of eerie laughter. It rolled and boomed like a growl of thunder from one end of the room to the other.

All of the Preventors still in the room coalesced in front of Quatre the Prone and Relena, forming a human shield to protect them from the assassin who laughed at all of them as they shot at him.

The assassin kept laughing. Heero kept firing until his gun clicked, he was joined by others, but the creature just kept advancing it's torso no longer even jerked as the bullets ripped into it.. Relena's eyes widened in shock and disbelief as the assassin grabbed the solid marble wet bar, that weighed more than some trucks she was sure, heaved it from it's bolted-in bed and hurled it to where they were standing. The Preventors got out of the way, but Relena stood frozen in fear, like a deer caught in the headlights as the marble wet-bar made its impossible way over to her. It just wasn't possible. There was no way anyone could lift that thing!

"oof!" Relena grunted as she was knocked to one side. Arms wrapped around her waist and she was rolled along the ground with someone out of harms way. The wet bar went crashing into the ground where she had been a moment ago.

"Quatre!" she called. She'd left him there!

"He's fine," the blunt voice reassured her. Indeed, as she looked over she saw his friend Trowa Barton ducking into the shadows with Quatre slung over his tall, broad shoulders. Relena looked over at her savior.

"Oh god…It's _you_!" Heero. Relena looked up in relief and a little dismay. Heero was here, that generally meant the end of the world or something close to it. "Should I be panicking right now?"

"No. You can't afford to panic, you saw what he did to the wet-bar," Heero pointed out. He pulled out another gun and continued firing, but the bullets didn't even seem to be hitting the light-covered assassin. 

"Everybody down!" Heero ordered. He activated the countdown sequence on thermal grenade and threw. The little ball tinked and skittered to rest at the feet of the assassin, where it should have exploded. Heero looked up after a few seconds of shielding Relena from a blast that never came.

"Heero…you did remember to pull the pin didn't you?" Relena asked innocently. He glared and said 

"Yes. It was a plasma bomb, and not a dud. He must have disarmed it somehow. And why aren't the bullets even penetrating him?"

From the shadows the attacker said with a voice that dripped supreme confidence bordering on arrogance

"Puny powerless Mortal! Weak, insignificant entrée! Your stupid little toys can't harm a Nightsider. I should kill you for your stupidity, but tonight, I am feeling generous. Give me the girl I seek, and I'll let you walk away alive. I do not make such a magnanimous offer often."

Heero, in answer, looked around. There was a whisky bottle, still full, lying nearby. He picked it up, inserted one of his explosives fuses, and lit it. With a smirk he lobbed it at his "magnanimous" opponent.

Heero's jaw nearly dropped in shock as, instead of shattering onto the man and lighting him on fire, the bottle was caught by an impossibly fast maneuver. He hadn't even seen the man move! He was just suddenly _there_.

"Foolish boy," he said. "I will feast of your essence, and then I will feast of the girl."

Heero shoved Relena behind him as the shadows gathered again. He had one final trick in reserve. He pushed the communicator button.

"Feast on this."

Suddenly one of the walls and most of the ceiling came crashing in, the "Nightsider" or whatever he was, looked over in time to stare up the enormous barrel of Wing Gundam's buster rifle.

"I know you're from a world away so perhaps I should explain what it is you're faced with," Said Heero, his voice deadly calm. "The suit is known as a mobile suit, most specifically a Gundam."

Relena looked puzzled, hadn't all of the Gundams been destroyed? Obviously not or Zero wouldn't be here.

"The buster rifle is capable of not only obliterating a battlestation out in space but of annihilating you, me, and this entire estate. Even all of your supposed invulnerability could not stand up to that."

"You are a fool," said the Nightsider arrogantly. "If you fire, you will not only destroy you and myself, you will destroy the one you have come here to protect. And you are twice a fool for underestimating the power of a Nightsider. You weapon is useless now boy."

Heero had the unpleasant feeling of perplexity once again. This assassin was every bit as bad as the other Alternity's president had said.

"Heero-man…" the voice of Duo said via his earpeice. Duo was in the cockpit of the Gundam, his last and only trump card against and enemy that had neutralized an entire team of Preventors as if he were swatting away flies. "The locking mechanism on this buster rifle has been armed and I can't disarm it. The thing won't fire no matter what I do."

"Stand-by," said Heero. He faced his opponent sharply. "Clever, you've succeeded in deactivating the buster rifle, but that is not the only defense of this mobile suit. Would you survive having the ceiling dropped on you?"

"Of course," said the assassin, as if it were only natural. "But you wouldn't, and neither would your charge. I am stronger than you, superior weak Normals in every way. You will die and I will grow even stronger. When I have overrun your Alternity's pitiful defenses I will be so powerful that Nightlord Thanatos himself will be forced to stand aside and cede the title of Nightlord to me. I will be so powerful that no First Circle Nightsider could touch me."

"What are you babbling about?" demanded Relena in annoyance.

"Without Executioner Nightheart to stop me, I have free run of your Alternity. No mere Normal will be able to stop me from Draining them and with the vital energy I can gather freely without fear of being hunted down by the Executioner I will grow even stronger. When I get so powerful that even Nightlord Thanatos fears my power and abilities I will return to my own kind and rule the entire Nightsider Council. There, is that thorough enough for you?"

Relena felt even more confused, but obviously Heero understood. 

He's been keeping things from me…again, she thought shooting an annoyed glare over at him. I really hate that. _I_ should have the right to decide what information I need to know and not be protected and kept in ignorance "for my own good." I'm the only one who has the right to decide what my own good is. I shall have to have a long talk with him when I get he time to.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The sound of a gun ringing out in the empty and trashed marble ball room echoed against the stone. There stood Hilde,AK-47 in hand, shooting at the Nightsider Assassin. Instead of penetrating his flesh, the bullets ricochet off a sheild that swirled with orange and white energy, like iridescence on a soap bubble. The Nightsider looked over at her and, as if here were waving at a pesky insect swatted in her direction. Hilde went flying backwards with the force of some kind of invisible blast. Her body was lifted off the ground and landed hard rolling a few feet then coming to a stop near a door way with her unconscious. Through his earpeice Heero could hear Duo's cry of "Hildeee!" quite well. But the cock pit didn't open, Duo was obviously being torn between his perceived duty and his very real concern over his…friend.

"Get out and go to her," Heero ordered shortly. "The Gundam will be useless in this battle, it's destructive abilities are too great for such a small area."

"How perceptive of you boy," said unnatural human. "Now, I could use brute strength to destroy you both now, but then I wouldn't get the recharge I want from draining you. So why don't you just make it easy for yourself, spare yourself a lot of pain from me beating you into unconsciousness and your lady from the pain of seeing you beaten and surrender to me now. I promise you both a painless death."

"Only the weak prey on helpless women," said a voice from behind the Nightsider. Wufei, and he had his katana out. "Only those with no integrity fight for personal gain and not for honor. You have no sense of justice that you attack from the shadows and not fight in the open like a true warrior."

"So…you have guessed at our single weakness then boy? I see you bring a _bladed_ weapon. Your challenge, insignificant one, is accepted," said the Nightsider. From across his own back he drew his own blade, a sword forged by the hand of Dotomo. Master Dotomo was the finest craftsman of the dying art of weapons forgery in his alternity, and his dotomo blade was nothing short of perfection. Each was different from any other and each was created for a single user. It was said that when the bearer of one of Master Dotomo's blades died in combat, he blade turned to ash and drifted away on the wind. 

"But first, allow me to ensure that there are no distractions from our match…" The Nightsider whirled to face where Heero stood in protective stance over Relena and whipped his blade downward and across through the air. Heero was blown bodily backwards. Careening through the air in a rather eerie repeat of when he had self-destructed his Gundam he hit the wall with his shoulder blades and slumped to the floor, unconscious.

"You-you-you…monster!" Relena cried and picked up the nearest rock she could find and hurled it at the Nightsider. It flew way wide of the mark, and even if her aim had been true it would have done no good.

"Silence weak Normal, or you will be joining him," said the Nightsider coldly. Relena quieted and went over to check on Heero while the Nightsider turned his attention back to his waiting challenger who was glaring balefully at him from smoldering dark eyes.

Wufei attacked first, lunging at him, katana swinging wide and cutting across. His swing would have decapitated the Nightsider, if the Nighthsider had been standing there, unfortunately for Wufei, the Nightsider had moved with a speed that defied al reason and had slipped in behind him. The Nightsider struck next, making a series of small shallow cuts, his movements were impossibly quick, he was one second there and the next not only to reappear again as if by magic. He was obviously toying with Wufei as the attacks he made were all in non-vital areas, a slice on the arm, a cut to the shoulder. 

"Hold still, damn you!" Wufei shouted. 

Obligingly the Nightsider stood his ground, feet planted shoulder width apart. He was smiling mockingly at Wufei. He taunted him, saying

"To make things easier for you Normal, I could tie both of my hands behind my back and fight you with my blade in my teeth."

"Shut up and fight me!" Wufei said, rushing in with a fast and furious flurry of attacks, that left the few spectators there awed at his speed and agility. The Nightsider however, simply blocked all of Wufies thrusts and jabs as if the young man were moving in slow motion.

"I grow weary of this," said the Nightsider in a bored tone. He moved, faster than a cobra could strike, and slapped Wufei with the flat of the blade sending him sprawling into the dust. Wufei lay there unmoving amidst the debris of what was left of Velsinks ballroom.

"Wufei!" Came the cry off to the side. There stood a very pissed off looking Sally Po with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. Heero recovered his senses just in time to haul himself up and drag a shocked Relena down behind the marble wet bar top turned on its side creating a convenient shield. Heero furthermore shielded her with his own body from any debris that might rain down on her from above.

"Take this you bastard!" she shouted and Sally launched the rocket at where the Nightsider stood, smiling. 

Then the world exploded into light and sound, Relena could feel the hot wind rushing by over her head despite Heero's smothering of her. She was reminded uncomfortably of the death of her father, how the room had smelled of smoke and explosives. The furor died out quickly and Sally looked expectantly at the gaping crater where the Nightsider had stood cockily only moments before. The air was clouded with dust and plaster it hung like mist about the room.

Then the bone-chilling sound of the Nightsiders laugher emerged from the pit, and he rose, like some hulking legend, like a zombie from an old B-flick. Like a nightmare he emerged from the mists of destruction. He seemed to stagger a bit, but he advanced.

Relena, thrown to the ground behind the marble wet-bar shield, couldn't peer above the confines of her shelter for Heero's weight was holding her down.

"Um…Heero?" she said hesitantly. He made an inquisitive noise from his protective position at her person.

"Could you possibly, please….get your face out of my breasts?"

Heero, almost reluctantly it seemed, raised his face to look at her.

"Are you undamaged?" he inquired, his fingers probing expertly for broken bones, a cracked rib, something out of joint. 

"I'm fine. If Sally with a rocket launcher couldn't take that guy out don't you think it's time we surrendered the field and made a strategic retreat?" she suggested. Heero frowned, but looked up over the rim of the shield at what remained of the ballroom and had to accede to the wisdom of her suggestion. What little information he had hurriedly been able to gather about their new enemy had recommended avoidance of them in place of direct confrontation.

Heero spoke into the communications device attached to his collar.

"Preventor Wing here, Relena is with me is there an escape route clear?"

"That's an affirmative, all forces are pulling back to secure an escape route," said the voice on the other end of the com-unit. It sounded vaguly like Trowa, Relena imagined it probably was Trowa.

"Ask him if Quatre's okay," Relena hissed. "And Hilde and Sally while you're at it."

"Later. I'm sure their partners have seen to their safety," siad Heero. He really did not have time at the moment for a gossiping session over his com-link. "Let's go."

He scanned the area quickly before he hustled Relena out of the shelter of the upturned wet-bar and towards the door.

"Oh, you wouldn't be trying to leave me would you my dear?" inquired the voice of the assassin sent to kill her. He was right in front of them! Relena finally got a good look at his face. If she thought Heero had looked cold at times, this person seemed downright inhuman. His eyes held no warmth, only the reflection of a hundred deaths. His movements were predatory and he looked at her as though he were seeing not a person, but a meal. It sent a shiver down her spine. 

"I'm your nothing," she hissed back spiritedly. "Now why are you harassing me?"

The assassin sighed impatiently. "We've just been through my reasons, now hold still like a good little morsel and I'll finish you off quickly."

"Don't touch her," Heero growled, leveling his gun at the assassin.

The Nightsider simply looked at the gun, cocked his head to one side…then met Heero's eyes with a look that seemed to penetrate all of his shields.

"You won't shoot me…in fact, you want to lower your gun…"

Heero, hand shaking and jaw clenched, lowered his gun. The Nightsiders look grew even more predatory, more vulturine, as he said

"And now you will hand over the girl to me so that I may be on my way…"

Heero suddenly snapped to attention, looking for all the world like a man who had been startled from his sleep. His hand jerked reflexively and the gun reassumed its position pointed at the Nightsider. In one swift, fluid movement, Heero aimed and fired. 

But the Nightsider was no longer standing in front of them. He stood off to one side, unharmed. His outline shimmered with light and shadow as he examined his prey and the one standing in the way of his prey with vexation.

"Well, I suppose I should resume this some other night then. The primitive weapons in your alternity will not be able to withstand my abilities. The Executioner is no threat to me here…I will have all the time in the world to see to the completion of my task," he said with the confidence of one who knows that his eventual victory is inevitable. He looked at Relena. "Look out for shadows pretty one, you never know what they hide."

And with that he just…disappeared. Relena blinked, it had been like a conjurers trick, he was there one moment and then in the next gone as if he'd never been.

"Nut's," she muttered. "As if my life wasn't complicated enough!"

"Let's go," was Heero's terse reply. Relena looked at him a trifle resentfully. She did not like being ordered about as if she were some kind of menial…but she really had nothing better to do at the moment so she would simply follow him. For now. After all there was no point in fighting with him about it at this time, he'd probably get all stubborn if she refused to cooperate. And then do something like throw her over his shoulder and carry her off caveman style and Relena had no desire to make a scene at the moment.

Heero showed her to a nondescript car being driven by one of the preventors who promptly reported that the building was clear of all agents. Heero told him to take a round-about Route to the safe house that had been set up for the night. Everyone was regrouping there.

The "safe house" as it turned out was one of Quatre's villas located in an out of the way place in the countryside. Relena would have liked to have been able to see where she was, but it was dark out, so she figured that the exploring would have to wait. She was received at the door by one of Quatre's Maguanac man-servants and she and Heero were conducted to the library without so much as a by your leave.

"Drink this," Heero ordered, handing her a glass of water.

Suddenly the events of the day, evening and night hit her like a ton of bricks. It was as if his terse order was the triggering devise on all of the emotions she had shoved aside in order to survive her recent ordeal. Out of all the assassination attempts, this one was the closest that had come to killing her and she was feeling just a tiny bit shaken. But Relena's reaction to such things was rarely to sit down and weep like some tragic heroine from a romantic novel. No. Generally Relena just got very stubborn and a little upset. She didn't like it when people who were supposedly her friends kept things from her either.

"No!" she said pounding the cup on the table. "I won't. _You_ drink it! Now, I would like very much to know what precisely is going on here and why all of you felt the need to keep me in the dark about it."

Relena scowled at the room at large, which was an unusual expression for her to wear. Quatre looked up from his reclining position on one of the plush couches in the library, Trowa in a chair nearby and Rachiid standing attentive service at his right arm. Lady Une was in another room checking on Mariemaia, and Duo was off somewhere smothering Hilde. Sally was examining a frowning Wufei but looked up at Relena in her uncharacteristic outburst. Relena was just getting warmed up.

"And as for _you_," she said whirling around to face her rescuer with an unamused frown, poking him in the chest. "Why are you here…" then she turned to address the room. "Why is he here?! I've been ambushed, my car's been blown up, my house has been attacked, I've gotten threats in my mail and poisons disguised as roses. The day police step in I know that things have gotten pretty bad. The day you Preventors get up in my business waving your badges around like some holy talisman of carte blanche I know that things have gone from bad to worse!" Her temper was obviously up at this point and she was pacing the room like a caged lioness. "But the day Heero Yuy shows up on my door step is the day I know things have gone from _worse_ to **_catastrophic_**!!" At this point she had worked herself up to a shriek, she was obviously feeling the anger at this point and no one in their right minds wanted to call attention to themselves by trying to reason with her.

"Now I'm a little sick of all you people keeping things from me for my own good without having the slightest notion of what my own good is. I'm a little tired, a little upset and I think that I deserve some answers! NOW!"

Then as an after thought she whirled back on Heero, frowning suspiciously, and said

"And where's my brother?!"

(At this point Heero was thinking he'd sooner take his chances with the Nightsider.)

"Feel better?" asked Quatre finally. Relena took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

"Yes I do actually," she said in a normal-cheerful tone, as if she hadn't been yelling at the top of her lungs a moment ago.

"Tea?" Quatre inquired genially.

"Please," she replied with perfect civility, settling into the chair across the coffee table from the couch where he lay. Rachiid poured tea for her in a china teacup with a saucer.

"Sugar?"

"Not this late thank-you," she said in a convivial manner.

"Ah, yes, it is quite late. One tends to lose track of time easily on these things."

Relena sipped. "Oh my! This is remarkably good tea."

"Thank-you, it's my own special blend," said Quatre. Heero was simply standing there in the doorway, taking in the entire scene with an air of bewilderment. Trowa was chuckling, apparently at the expression on Heero's face. Quatre called over to him.

"It's alright now Heero, the hurricane is over with. You can come and sit in for the planning session."

"Oh come now Quatre, I hardly think an outburst of stress and temper counts as a hurricane," Relena objected. "I didn't throw anything, nor did I kick, hit, overturn or shred anything within my vicinity. If you wish to see a hurricane, watch Mariemaia when she's having one of her temper tantrums. It's truly a sight to behold. Though I must give the young one credit, they are getting much fewer and farther between."

"Yes, Lady Une has truly been good for the child," Quatre agreed affably. "Heero sit down, she doesn't bite."

"I could make a remark about that, but I won't," said Relena with a smile that was positively impish. "Now, my good friend Quatre…will you please tell me what's going on and don't spare me on the details."

"Yes of course," he said. "I'd like to start out with the small consolation that you are not the only target of these new assassins. But I'm getting ahead of myself…"

And Quatre explained to Relena about the alternate dimension…

"But why, if these guys are so eager to escape their own dimension, don't they simply open up a portal of their own?" Relena interrupted.

"Because, the door has to be open from both sides. The other corporation now possesses the means to do that. They only asked for twelve Assassins to come over because they figured that that would be all that it would take to get rid of their political targets. I've locked the door from our side so no more can cross over, but there is still the twelve _here_ to deal with."

"So tell me about these Assassins, what are they?"

"The analogy that Alliace President Yoshi Takahashi used was that of a vampire. You are of course familiar with the old myths about vampires?"

"Yes. Beings that are supposedly Immortal, come out only at night and drink the blood of Humans in order to stay alive over the centuries. They can be stopped by a stake through the heart, daylight, garlic, silver bullets, running water and…so on. I'm familiar with the tales, it's said they can change their shape…are you saying these assassins are really _Vampires_ Quatre?" Relena looked at his skeptically.

"Not in the traditional sense no. As I said it is only an analogy. There are certain parallels between the legendary Vampires of myth and story and these experimental Assassins that call themselves Nightsiders," was Quatre's reply. "These Nightsider Assassins were originally the result of a top secret experiment by an organization known as the Committee. President Takahashi told us that the committee is a powerful government organization that tracks, controls, and trains Telepaths in their society. The Committee was trying to create the perfect assassins, untraceable and undetectable. They abducted innocent people off the street, poor people, homeless who would not be missed, and bonded them with a non-corporeal energy form they called a Symbiont. The experiment had a high death rate and, according to the files President Takahashi sent us, not many survived. The ones that did make it through what they called "Transition" from normal human to Nightsider Assassin were put through a rigorous training program called "Conditioning," which they used to erase all the Humanity from their assassins, make them into killers. Any who resisted were mind wiped and reprogrammed."

"How terrible! How could anyone do such a thing?" said Relena in dismay.

"Perhaps she does not need to hear this part," said Heero stiffly. 

"You stay out of this. I'm still upset with you," Relena told him.

"Over what? I just saved your life."

"My hero. Pardon me while I swoon," she said acidicly. "You were saying Quatre."

"Yes well, the assassin's health and well-being is dependent on the health and well being of their Symbiont. The Symbiont grants them incredible abilities, it doesn't say what they are, but one of them is an amazing rate of healing and even some regenerative capabilities. Nothing comes without a price however. The Symbiont requires the absorption of Life energies in order to stay alive and so, too, do the Nightsiders. Therefore, the Nightsiders require human life energies to continue to live. For a while in their alternity, the Committee had them under control, but they eventually broke free of their masters and an entire population of remorseless and hungry killers was released into the general population to feed at will."

"Oh my. That can't be a good thing. I saw _one_ of them in action, however did they manage to keep the death toll down?"

"Well, fortunately for them, one of the Nightsiders had escaped conditioning with their personality and ethics intact. This person, President Takahashi hasn't mentioned if it's male or female, offered to track down and take out the dangerous Nightsiders that were feasting on the peoples lives. You see, the more lives a Nightsider took, the more powerful their Symbionts made them, the more it enhanced their abilities, and the more powerful they became. Soon, the Nightsiders had a little society of their own set up and they gained status by feeding of Human life energies and gaining power. The Executioner is the only one set up to stop them, she can detect their energy signatures and track them from their kills. She gets a Mandate for the Execution of a Nightsider from President Takahashi, and then she tracks the Nightsider down and…well. I think you can guess the rest."

"Oh, I see. How sad," said Relena. "So these Nightsiders are over here to kill me? And from what the Assassin at the party said earlier, I don't think they intend to stop there."

"Not just you," said Trowa. "There's an entire list of people they are going to eliminate. And you're right. President Takahashi believes that once they have finished with the people on their list they will move on to choicer prey."

"Oh."

"And as for where your brother is," said Heero his voice sounding a little stiff with offended dignity. "He has been sent over to the other Alternity to borrow their solution for a few days. He should be back tomorrow with their Executioner."

"Well, that's good. There isn't anything more that I can do tonight, so I wish to go to bed."

"I am to escort you to your quarters," said Heero, he still looked displeased. Relena ignored him and his offended dignity in favor of bidding everyone else in the room a calm goodnight. Heero left with her to escort her to her quarters.

Just outside her door Relena paused and looked up at him.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier Heero," she said sincerely. "I really am grateful for all that you've done. I was just…unsettled, and a little bit wrung out. My temper was frayed and I snapped. It wasn't you, I promise. Sweet dreams," she said then patted him absently on the shoulder as she smothered a yawn and turned into her assigned guest quarters.

Heero was left on the other side of the door, looking surprised and uncertain of what to think or do. Then he shrugged and took to his own room across the hall. He would be sleeping lightly that night.

"…Generally where the story ends," he overheard Sally remaking to Hilde down the hall. "The girl's been rescued, the assassin identified, and the princess reunited with her hero."

"Or in this case Heero," Hilde punned.

"You're as bad as your partner. But seriously. You saw how that thing took an explosion from a rocket launcher then just laughed at us, as if our attempts to kill it were funny. I don't know if even the five pilots can stand up to these things, I've never seen anything like it."

"We'll just have to hope that this Executioner of theirs is as good as President Takahashi claims. But you're right, it isn't fair. The story should be over right now. We scared off the bad guy, the princess is safe with her knight in shiny armor…this should be the end, instead, it's just the beginning."

And with that disturbing sentiment, Heero closed his eyes and willed himself into sleep.

* * * 

Disclaimers: See chapter one.


	2. Alternity

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or its charactors. Those are copyright of Sunrise, Bandai and Sotsu Agency and their respective creators Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yatate. I DO, however, own the charactors and _world _of Executioner Nightheart (which is where I got my author name from). Hear that? They're mine! Mine I say! Copyright to ME! You can't have them!
    
    This story is written in answer to the following challenge issued by Silent Pegasus.

_"I challenge you to write a fanfic with a mysterious girl to come in and help them out but she can't have a gundam she can't be anyone's long lost sibling and she can't become anyone's girlfriend. She is just gonna be an awesome ally." _

I know what you're all thinking… 

'Why hello Mary Sue!' She's not a Mary Sue, I promise! In fact, she was already a well-defined character before I'd ever even heard of or started watching Gundam Wing. So any similarities between Nightheart and some of the characters are genuinely coincidental. But, that doesn't mean I can't have fun with it all the same.

In answer to the challenge I decided I'd do a crossover with a series I'd worked on and fleshed out before I ever started watching Gundam Wing. In fact, I liked my main character's name so much I stole it for my own use as an authors name, so if any of you were ever curious about why I picked the name Nightheart…there it is. She's just going to pop into their world, do what she came to do, and go home, but in the interim she should hopefully be "An awesome ally."

So without much more fanfare or further ado, I invite you to relax, maybe pull out some candy, popcorn and a soda, and enjoy this segueing of talents as I momentarily merge my own work with the vision of another creators'.

* * * * * 

The sky slowly metamorphed from the pitch dark of full night to the twilight heralding the dawn. In the alley way a small rodent scampered back to the protection offered by the trash bin. There were the soggy remains of old cardboard boxes and newspapers. Puddles of grime danced with the reflected lights of a cheap holo-sign, it was much like any other back alley that Hunter had ever seen in his life, and he'd seen a lot of them. 

He looked around once more, all of his senses sharp. He may have grown up traversing dangerous back-alleys like these, but that didn't mean he still couldn't get knifed in the dark for being careless. Then Nightheart would never let him hear the end of it.

Hunter Kylaran suppressed a yawn at the sight of twilight lightening the sky from darkness to daylight. She would be back very soon now.

Sure enough, from the shadows, silent as a shadow herself, emerged Nightheart, the Executioner of Nightsiders. 

"Good morning," said Hunter cheerfully. "I take it that you were successful?"

"I completed the assignment. Nightsider 8477 has been terminated."

The same familiar darkness haunted her eyes, the residue of death and pain leftover from the nights work. Those who said that eyes were the windows to the soul had never seen Executioner Nightheart's eyes. Hers were two chips of obsidian, two dark voids where secrets fell into and never came out again. But still, there was pain there. Old pain. New pain. Perhaps by now it was all the same to her.

"You should get some rest," he told her.

"But I can tell by that tone in your voice that I won't be," she said flatly. "I take it that President Takahashi has a new assignment for me."

"Yes, but this one's going to be…a little bit out of the way," Hunter said, scratching the back of his neck and turning to fall in step beside her as she walked back to their ship. She glanced sharply at him.

"How far out?" she asked suspiciously.

"I can't explain it to you here," Hunter said, gesturing around him and giving her a look that said top secret stuff. "The night has eyes and ears you know."

"Yes. We should be on our way then."

Nightheart didn't let any of her resignation slip into her voice. Hunter clicked the remote beacon to summon the skimmer he had waiting and the two of them climbed in for the short ride to the port. Hunter was in the drivers seat, he always was; the Executioner might be hot stuff when it came to hunting down and killing Assassins, but she was lousy at anything having to do with machines. A quick flash of their badges at the front gate let them enter the secured area where their shuttle for planetfall waited. They clipped themselves into the shuttle harnesses in either seat of the small cockpit and Hunter ran through the launch poceedures for exiting planetary gravity with practiced ease. They were shortly in the air and exiting the starosphere on course for the nearby Habbie Plat. A few minutes after that Hunter docked their shuttle with its parent with the ship the Artemis that was docked in the bay of the orbiting Habitations Platform.

Their ship was a standard Guardian issue vessel, a Salamander-class fighter. Salamanders were amphibious, and so was this ship, after a fashion. It was primarily a space going vessel, equipped for speed and maneuverability in the zero gravity of the vacuum. But the cockpit could be sealed off and detached from the rest of the ship and deployed as a shuttle for planetfall.

"This is the Alliance Fighter Artemis serial number 03796124 checking in with base," Hunter said as the cruiser departed for Terra-Dome and the Alliance Headquarters stationed in New Geneva. 

"This is Base, we read you. What is the status of the mission?" an anonymous voice over the com-channel requested in the bored tones of someone who had been through that spleel too many times to count.

"Subject terminated," said Nightheart bluntly. 

"That's one less Nightsider to steal the lives of innocents," Hunter added in from his place in the cockpit. "We're returning into base for debriefing. This one gave us both a run for our money, I thought she'd never get him!"

"But we know you better than that Executioner, you always get 'em," said the voice on the other end wryly.

Nightheart switched off the comm, and hit the lights, frowning in remembered pain.

"Yeah," she agreed morosely into the silence. "I do."

"Hey, you okay?" asked Hunter. His Austrailio-British accent breaking softly into the silence.

"I'm fine," she growled. Then firmly shut her eyes.

Hunter said nothing more. Nightheart was always moody after an assignment. Well, scratch that, she was moody all of the time. She had been for much of the time he'd known her. Hunter merely piloted in silence, letting her brood to her hearts content. Lord knew she would anyway. 

He'd been partnered with Nightheart by President Takahashi back when she'd first been commissioned as the Executioner. He was a Guardian, an elite fighting force, politically neutral, that patrolled the wilder parts of space watching and listening for trouble. The Guardians were part police force, part circuit judge, part mediator, part spy, part communications channel and part…whatever else the moment required. Normally such a system would be ripe for the corrupting for the group answered only to the President and to each other, but it had been around for five hundred years and was still as idealistic as the day it was founded. Hunter himself believed completely in the cause he fought for, ready and willing to give his life to see that the Alliance upheld its ideals and oaths. 

And it was for this reason that he was the one assigned to "keep and eye on Nightheart" make sure she didn't do anything the Alliance might object to, make sure she didn't go berserk or suddenly switch sides. 

Sometimes, it was a pain…Nightheart was proud, taciturn, moody and convinced that having a Normal tagging along with her on her missions was a liability. She constantly told him he'd be better off sticking at HQ, that he'd only get in her way, that he'd distract her and give her targets a hostage to use against her. Hunter cheerfully ignored her. 

They'd been traveling together, on and off, for several years now. Even Nightheart would have to admit that it was more than duty that kept the two of them traveling together. One, he had been assigned to monitor her activities, and two…she was his friend. As much as a person like Nightheart could be said to have friends that was. He'd known her for a few years before he'd ever joined the Guardians and he _knew_ that he was one of the only, if _the_ only person she'd trust enough to let near her. Whatever else her faults, it could not be said that she wasn't loyal. Nightheart was feircely loyal and feircely protective of anyone she considered her own. And she would walk through fire, death, Hell and torture without blinking if any of them were in any danger. And Nightheart vengeances were a real bitch! He'd seen that for himself. He'd almost felt sorry for the last life-sucking parasite that had pissed her off.

"What do you think the President's new assignment is going to be?" she surprised him by asking suddenly into the silence that had engulfed the cockpit. "I mean, aside of sending me out to kill people, that is." Hunter caught the caustic edge in her voice.

"I haven't the faintest," he said mildly. "Is…is there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

There was silence for a few minutes, and Hunter thought she'd simply closed herself off again (like usual) when she again surprised him by answering. 

"I've got a funny feeling about this new assignment Hunter. It's not like the President to order us back to base for a debriefing. He almost always simply forwards the assignments to us out in the field and lets us go to it. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been issued an Execution Mandate from the HQ. I think something strange is going to happen, but," she said with a shrug. "If it is, there's not much we can do about it now. We'll just have to wait and see how events play out."

"Ah yes. My partner, the warrior stoic," he said with a wry grin.

"Given my position, it would not be beneficial to be anything else. I certainly can't bring myself to be eternally cheerful…unlike _some_ people I could mention."

"Admit it, you adore me anyway," he teased. He loved teasing her, Nightheart was always so serious, she needed someone to lighten her up and get her to see that not everything was a matter of life and death. Even when she was off-assignment, on one of the short medical vacations that the Doc insisted she take regularly, there was an air of solemnity about her. Hunter guessed it was probably the past she refused to talk about. Oh, every once in a while she'd let slip a few details, and once or twice Hunter had gotten her to speak with him openly, but for the most part Nightheart didn't like to talk about her life before the two of them had met up.

"You go right on thinking that," she said crossing her arms to get some sleep. "Wake me when we get there."

"Yes my liege. Is a pleasuh workin' foh ya massah Nightheart suh!" he replied to her abrupt manner. "How else might I serve you Queen Pharuke!"

"Pilot silently. And barbecue me a heifer."

Hunter chuckled as Nightheart grinned slightly to show it was a joke. Sometimes by her tone it was hard to tell if she was serious or joking in her dry manner.

"Sleep well, you get little enough of it as it is."

Yes, he knew very well that Nightsiders required much less sleep than the average Human, a fact which Nightheart liked to remind him of frequently. But still, she had been four days moving non-stop trying to track down her target; even she had to be feeling the strain. Not that she would ever show it, Nightheart was too proud.

"I'll be in a light Healing Trance," she informed him. "I grew overconfident on this mission, my side has been slit at the rib cage. It's only a flesh wound, I'll be able to have my body fully healed by the time we reach orbit. My Symbiont has taken care of the worst of it already."

"Right. Well, I'll see you in four hours then."

Nightheart said nothing further and sat back in her chair to Trance herself. There were times that Hunter wished he'd been bonded with a Symbiont, the non-corporeal energy form that turned one from a mere Human into a Nightsider. For one thing, the self-healing abilities granted by a Symbiont were second to none, then there was the added unnatural strength, speed, stamina and agility as well as the enhanced perceptive capabilities. But then he remembered the price Nightheart paid for her bonding and was heartily glad he was a Mundane.

…

"Nightheart, we're there," he said shaking her gently awake. The bulk of the cruiser had been left up at space dock and the detachable shuttle had made planetfall. They had arrived swiftly to Headquarters.

Nightheart came into full alertness from a dead sleep. It still unnerved Hunter that she was able to do that, even after all of this time. 

She nodded silently and unclipped herself from the harness with practiced ease. She no longer fumbled with the straps as something alien and unfamiliar to her. Whatever place she had come form that she still refused to talk about, Hunter could tell they didn't have things like shuttle harnesses. That argued for it being one of the low-tech colony-worlds, the ones who had wanted to get away from the high-tech insanity of Earth and lead simple lives off the land. Hunter didn't really see the appeal himself, of course, he was a real techie-buff. If it could be flown, hacked or accessed, Hunter knew something about it. He'd spent his youth as a rebel-terrorist and jack-of-all-trades for the Telepath Resistence under the tutelage of his mother, Zulina. She had died in a raid on the Committee, the government force that controlled the activities of Telepaths a few years back. That in turn had been the catalyst that had lead Hunter to go from wandering space pirate to selfless do-gooder (a choice Nightheart still didn't fully understand) and join up with the Guardians, a collection of warriors dedicated to watching the watchmen and protecting the peace, and the Alliance of Terra-Dome, Mars and Space Nation. Nightheart herself wasn't precisely part of the Gaurdians, although by the nature of her job she worked closely with them.

"I hope that I'll be allowed to freshen up a little bit before this debriefing," she grumbled.

Now that Hunter looked at her she was indeed a mess. Her black working-uniform was covered in blood-splatter, she had what looked like a piece of entrail hanging from her left shoulder tab, as well as some other liquid probably best left unidentified squelching from her boots.

"Ah! There you are Miss Nightheart!" called one of the HQ servants, a message runner and an attendee to the Quarters followed a half step behind. Hunter did a double take. Despite her young age, Nightheart was no more a "miss" than he was. Titles of "miss" belonged to innocent young women, like heiress Delia Elderdourne. Completely aside of that, no one ever called the Executioner by her first name without a qualification. Hunter was the single exception to that rule. Hunter was the single exception to a lot of her rules. 

"That's Executioner to you," she grumbled at the man in irritation. "What is it?"

"You need to clean yourself up; the President needs to see you in his office quickly. I have taken the liberty of laying out your dress uniform."

"Oh have you now," she growled, and edge of menace in her voice. Nightheart disliked anyone (and that meant _anyone_) invading her personal space. Even Hunter, who had known her the longest, was only allowed in so far. "And what, precisely, made you think you could simply waltz into my private quarters and lay hands on my clothes?"

Here she let a tiny hint of her Nightsider Assassin's powers leak out to the perceptible level, making the air seem to crackle with her displeasure. As an intimidation tactic, it was a good one. The plump little man was cowering in fright, even though Nightheart was shorter and slighter than he. She had a certain reputation, not completely unwarranted, as a merciless warrior-killer. On occasion she was not above using it to put the fear of HER back into the general populace.

The little man squealed and ran back down the hall, yelling an apology over his shoulder.

"Nightheart," he chided. "That wasn't very nice. You shouldn't go around intimidating people for just doing their job."

"Who me? Intimidate? Nahhh," she said with a rare mischievous grin. Then with a wink and a chuck of her tongue in Hunters direction, she turned to Quartermaster and said "Now. Where's my shower?"

The Quatermaster, long accustomed to Nightheart's peculiarities, gestured her down the hall to the quarters that she'd had assigned to her when she first took up her position as Nightsider Executioner. A room she had not seen in over four months. Hunter found his own bunk and lock-box for a fresh change of uniform, and a shower in the stalls.

Twenty minutes later, Nightheart, showered, hair braided and coiled up out of her way, and in a neat, pristine white dress-uniform met Hunter on his own way to the Presidents office. After so long a time of association, they had each others habits and routines timed down to a nicety. 

"I still don't see why your people make me wear this ridiculous thing to formal meetings," she said, scowling and reaching under her dress jacket the tug down her shirt. She did that frequently when she wore the dress uniform designed for her.

Nightheart's Dress Uniform was a stark pristine white, and she detested it. The wardrobe specialists had felt that using white for the formal uniform would send a subconscious impression of purity and good-intent. Nightheart just thought that the thing washed out her complexion and made her stand out. She also felt that the cut constricted her movement. The jacket was modeled after a military dress jacket complete with the shoulder tabs and the sleeve cuts that didn't allow her to raise her arms above perpendicular to her body without ripping open the back seam. Not only that, she'd once muttered, but the shirt that went under it was forever bunching up around her breast area and wrinkling where people could see it forcing her to keep tugging it down to get it straight. Then there was the tie… A thing, she claimed, that had a life and intentions of it's own as it continually seemed to keep tightening itself around her throat. The shoes were shiny white pumps, which she also disliked as being impractical and preventing her from a getting a good speed to her run. About the only thing she did like about the entire uniform were the pants, which, she had to admit, fit perfectly.

"I detest this uncomfortable thing. It never fits right."

"Then maybe you should quit grumping about it and stand through another sitting," Hunter teased, and had the satisfaction of seeing Nightheart pale a little and say quickly

"No! Ancestors Blood no! I only have to wear it once in a while, I think I can mange."

Hunter chuckled. His own dress uniform wasn't too bad; a dark charcoal grey cloak pinned to the epaulettes and layered to fall in folds. A matching dark long-sleeved shirt with silver cuffs and a silver trimmed high-necked collar went under a dark grey over-tunic that had a central front panel of lighter grey trimmed in silver braiding. The panel closed at the side by a hidden zipper with a frog-and-toggle clasp near the left shoulder for show. His pin adorned the right corner of the front panel and an ornately buckled belt held his single sidearm that went with the dress uniform. It was far more comfortable than Nighthearts uniform and allowed much more freedom of movement for him. Hunter thought he looked quite striking in it.

One of the guards outside the president's office walked in to announce them.

"Come in," said the President of the Alliance softly. He was a young-looking Asian man who's sparkling dark eyes and ageless face hid many a necessary secret. Even so, Nightheart unbent enough to incline her head in his direction out of respect for him and the position he held. Even as she noted him, his wife and his bodyguard, Nightheart's keen senses had picked up two other forms filling the space beyond the desk. A cursory examination showed the form of tall, princely-looking platinum blonde haired man with tragedy and bitterness written in his eyes and a serious frown on his lips. The other was a stately looking raven haired woman with pale skin and honest compassionate blue eyes. Both of them had the military bearing that shouted "soldier!" and from the way they were standing close together Nightheart would have guessed that they were more than merely fellow soldiers.

"Colonel Zechs, Lieutenant Noin, these are them," said the President without preamble, to their guests. "The one on the right is Hunter Kylaran, one of our best agents. The one on the left is the one you're after. The Executioner."

Nightheart, for her part, crossed her arms stiffly in her constrictive uniform (after tugging on the bottom of her shirt again) and waited for an explanation. Hunter winced at his partner's rudeness and made the prerequisite introductions.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. Sorry if my partner seems a little…cranky," Nightheart transferred her glare over to her erstwhile companion, who grinned to show he'd done it on purpose. "She just got in from a long stint of Executions out in Space Nation. She's a Ground Pounder so she doesn't really like being cooped up in a shuttle or on Habbie Plats, it makes her grouchy."

That last was for her, she knew it. She ignored her partner in favor of examining her guests in minute detail. That was odd…when she probed them with her power she got a strange sense of Otherness. There was the oddest feeling that, they didn't belong here somehow.

"That's alright," said the dark-haired one with her hair covering one eye. "I'm used to dealing with difficult personalities." She nodded to the man beside her.

"And just what precisely does that mean?" asked the long-haired blonde, speaking for the first time. His voice was not unpleasant to listen to, sort of raspy, and deep. Noin's voice was far more pleasant to listen to, being sort of wry and laced with good feelings. This was a woman who would put up with a lot from those she cared about.

"You ever see Colonel Une on an off-day?" she asked grinning. The blonde pretended to shudder.

Nightheart cleared her throat and said bluntly

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"Nightheart!" Hunter hissed, nudging her and glaring.

"Very well," she said, a small ghost of a smile hovering at her lips. "Who are you and what do you want _sir_?"

"Good enough," said the blonde. "I never was one for standing on ceremony. To get straight to the matter at hand, crazy as it sounds we are from a dimension parallel to your own and have traveled to your world using technology developed in secret on Mars. Unfortunately for us, we were not the first to develop this technology-"

"Project Alternity!" Hunter gasped. "_That's_ what they were trying to make, a gateway to another reality! It makes sense now. Why stay in a place where the Executioner can Hunt them down when they could travel to another dimension and be free to feast as they like without fear of reprisal!"

"That does make rather a bit too much sense," agreed Nightheart, for the moment ignoring their guests in favor of talking with Hunter. "And it falls in line with the information from that Committee database of Black Ops you hacked into."

"Damn them. As if Project Dracula wasn't bad enough, now they feel the need to go messing about with the fabric of time and space as well," she muttered darkly. "I wish I could prove it! For once I would like one tiny concrete shred of proof!"

"Tough luck, they're just too good."

"Ahem. If I could just interrupt your little tete a tete, for one moment here…" said the blonde. "As I was saying. These Nightsider Assassins as you call them contacted certain parties within our own Government, some of them even on the ESUN council with an offer they couldn't refuse. They get rid of certain key political figures, in exchange for being allowed free reign the feast on the…what is it you call it?"

"Life-energies," supplied Nightheart. "That was the original purpose of Project Dracula. To create untraceable assassins for a political coup. Nightsiders drain a person of their vital essence, their life energies in order to feed their own Symbionts. The death of the Symbiont means the death of the host. The killings look like a natural death and are untraceable, except to another Nightsider."

"Which, from what the President has told me so far, I take it _you_ are?"

"Correct." 

"Good. Then you can stop these creatures? All the kings horses and all the kings men have tried and failed. It was a minor miracle in and of itself that we managed to get Relena out of there alive. The person who commissioned your little friends for their dirty work really really wants her dead. The Nightsiders have this strength…it can't be Human!"

"It's not," Hunter assured him. "Nightsider strength is unrivaled in the natural world. I personally think it's some kind of telekinesis. The Committee has never had any luck with breeding a true telekinetic…"

"Anywho, I saw the guy pick up a marble park bench with one hand as if it were nothing. He took out seventeen of our best Preventors with a single swing," said Noin. "He wasn't even afraid of a mobile suit!"

"I don't suppose he knew what the hell it was," said Hunter. "It takes a lot to scare a Nightsider."

"How about a fifty-foot high suit of walking metal?" said Zechs, piqued at their non-chalance.

"And this thing was run by conventional electronics right?" inquired Hunter. At Noin's nod he said

"Well, that's why. Some have the ability to influence electrical currents. Short-circuit things and so on."

"That must be what went wrong," said Zechs, recalling his frustration with the highly tuned suit when it had inexplicably died on them.

"And this is all simply fascinating. Truly," said Nightheart. "But what does any of this have to do with me?"

"I'd think the answer would be obvious," said Noin. "We want you to come to our Alternity and take care of our little infestation before too many people get killed."

Nightheart cocked her head to one side and studied them dispassionately.

"I am correct in stating that you wish for me to leave my duties here and travel to your Alternity in order to dispose of the Nightsiders who have traveled over, is that correct?"

"Quite," the one called Zechs confirmed.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I swore my service to the people of this Alliance, to the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty. There is a large majority of standing Mandates here in this Alternity. I would be abandoning my post if I left this dimension."

"But your duty is to hunt down Nightsiders," Noin argued. "There are Nightsiders over in our Alternity so it wouldn't be abandoning your responsibilities at all; more like expanding your sphere of control."

"There are more powerful assassins here that require my presence to keep their activities somewhat in line," Nighteart returned. "If the Alliance were to lose that deterrent provided by my presence then matters would be even more dangerous than they are already."

"You will be paid twice your normal fee for taking on this assignment," President Takahashi said abruptly.

"I have no interest in the money your Excellency. I believe that twelve Nightsiders is a situation that takes little precedence when compared to the recent activities of the First Court and the emergence of those new Sect Masters," she said dismissively.

"Some of those Nightsiders have plans to drain as many lives as possible while they are completely unhindered in our Alternity, and then they wish to come back here and take you and the leaders of that First Circle on," Noin said quickly. "I heard one of them say so himself."

"This puts and entirely different spin on things then," Nightheart said, reconsidering. "In that case they likely will pose a threat sooner or later and I would far rather take care of it before many people have been hurt. It is the most effective strategy. Very well, I accept your commission." 

"I have the Execution Mandates all drawn up and signed," President Takahashi said smoothly.

"What about Hunter?" Nightheart added quickly, before she was dismissed. "It might be dangerous in this new Alternity. He should stay here to monitor these matters for me."

"What?! No way!" he objected vehemently. "Nightheart, you don't have any people skills, you _need_ me."

"I do not require people skills to fulfil my duties. I am not here to be a diplomat; I am here to destroy the Assassins before they do significant damage to the general populace."

The President looked a little hesitant about that statement. Nightheart often had an attitude of extreme self-confidence that bordered on arrogance when faced with representatives of another power, whether it be local law enforcement or Alliance Agents. It wasn't deliberate or intentional, it was just that she was _that good_, she was accustomed to always being right, her skills as a warrior granted her almost unparalleled fighting prowess, and her Nightsider-granted abilities made her far more perceptive in most cases than the average human. All of these reasons and more gave her a semblance of "the manner born" the seeming of having absolute control over the situation, and the _right_ to that absolute control.

"Nevertheless, there will be no small amount of diplomacy required in this matter," the President said. "Part of the mission profile will be in dealing with high place politicians."

"See? Told ya," sang Hunter cheerfully.

"_You_ stay here," she told him. 

"Nah, who's gonna keep _you_ out of trouble then?"

Nightheart rolled her eyes skyward, as if asking for patience and sighed. It was going to be a long trip.

"Glad to have you on the payroll," said Noin. "If you like you can call me Noin, most everyone else does, although my official code name is Preventor Fire. Zechs over here goes by a wide variety of names-"

"Not all of them complimentary I'm sure," said Hunter with a quirk of his lips. Noin had to bite back a laugh. Zechs glanced sharply at Hunter who schooled his face into a bland expression.

"No comment," said Noin. "You can either call him Zechs or His code name, Preventor Wind."

"And people think _I_ have and odd name," Nightheart muttered. "Very well then, let's get started. The sooner I complete this assignment, the better."

"So what's it like?" asked Noin, before Nightheart could turn to leave.

"What?"

"The President was telling me the outline of your occupation and a little of how you got here…"

"Pray that you never find out."

And with that, Nightheart turned on her heel to pack for another assignment. All the working uniforms from the assignment she'd just gotten off were either in ribbons, stained with blood (either hers or the other guy's) burned or otherwise damaged beyond repair. Hunter shrugged and followed her out, he had every intention of grabbing a decent meal while he was planetside, there was only so long one could live off nutripaste and protegel after all without going a little nuts. Nourishing it might be, tasty it was not. 

"Hey Nightheart, wait up…"

END PART ONE.

Disclaimer: I think I have it at the top, go check there. If not, well… I don't own Gundam Wing, Nightheart and everything in her Alternity is mine however.


	3. Unicorn

"I'm coming with you Nightheart," Hunter insisted the moment they were alone in the hallway. 

"You are not," she said tonelessly. They walked swiftly down the hallways, heading to the caf for some real food with real-food-taste. 

"We don't know what threats aside of Nightsiders there are in this other alternity. My Symbiont grants me immunity to disease and regenerative abilities. You don't have that. If something unexpected happened we don't how your system would react to alien healing practices, they might end up making the situation worse. So therefore, you are not going."

"I've been assigned by the Alliance to watch you and keep account of your activities; I can't do that if I'm not there." Hunters Australio-British accent became more pronounced in times of stress, Nightheart noted.

"And what do you suppose that I'm going to do while I'm over there? Run amuck? No I want you here and safe, monitoring things for me so they don't get out of hand. If word were to leak out that the cat was away, you know as well as I do that the mice are sure as hell going to play!"

"I don't want you going over there without me to back you up!"

"Face it Hunter, I don't _need_ your back up! I'll do fine, probably better, on my own."

"Not this again," he grumbled. It was an old argument between them. Nightheart insisted on trying to do every assignment without him. She saw him as a liability, not a partner. A frail human being that could be torn apart by the force of a Nightsider attack. Either that, or she really did prefer fighting alone.

"Nightheart, you are not trained in diplomacy, body-guarding or long-range weapons combat, or a lot of the stuff you're going to need for this mission. I am. You need me there. You can't even drive a skimmer for heavens sake let alone a ship for space travel. You may need to go up into space did you ever think of that?"

"I'm not trained in it because I don't need it. I go in there, I eliminate the threat and I get out. Plain and simple."

"Your answer to every new Nightsider problem is to blast them with your powers then suck them dry," Hunter retorted.

"Yes, and it's worked fine so far."

"Because they've all been weaker than you," he insisted. "If they've feasted off the vital essences of a suburb full innocents, they'll be pumped up and able to take you on a level playing field. You'll need a strategist, and that's me."

"You certainly think a lot of yourself. And who says I don't use strategy? Who trapped all those Nightsiders in the station and picked them off one by one? Me. Who thought up the use of channels to knock the energies right into their teeth? Me. Who thought up the decoys we use to distract them? Me. Who also thought up the Taggers? Me again. What part of this progression escapes your grasp?"

"Okay. You're no mean strategist. I'll give you that. But, your diplomacy sucks. You can't just waltz in there, flash your permits and expect everyone else to fall in line behind you."

"Why not?" she asked pretending to look genuinely interested.

"Because they won't recognize them. You're in another dimension, the Alliance probably doesn't exist over there."

"I'm sure this Noin character has everything sorted out. They're both soldiers, they're probably used to all that bureaucratic bull-shit."

Hunter took a deep breath and started again. Arguing with Nightheart was irritating at the best of times, probably because she tended not to sweat the details until _after_ the massive property damage was done.

"Nightheart, listen to me. You're going into an uncertain situation, with a host of hostiles who most probably want to see you dead. I mean, we don't even know if those two really are who they say they are. This could be all an elaborate trap set up by the Nightsider Council to get rid of their one opposition. You. You are the only Nightsider on our side, the only one we know of who survived with her ethics intact and the only one willing to fight them. If they get rid of you, they get rid of their only real threat. The only one who can track them, the only one who can kill them without massive destruction and loss of life."

"Hunter, Nightsiders are not invulnerable. They are not immortal, no matter what they would like Normals to think. They can be killed. Take off their heads, blow them up, deprive them of energies. It's simply very difficult to do so."

"And we've tried. You _do_ recall that one team we sent out in full exoskeletons don't you? You remember how many came back alive? Five…out of twenty-four!"

"Of course I remember!" she snapped. "That was my main argument for taking on this job in the first place, the loss of civilian and soldier life alike if I didn't! But I don't want you to get hurt or killed in a place where I may or may not be able to do anything about it. _I_ am the Executioner. That means _I_ take all the risks. Me. Me and only me. You need to be here where your alliance soldiers can come and back you up with superior numbers and weapons. I don't want to see you or any other Normal casually decapitated by a pissed off Assassin. Period. You're staying."

"I'm going. You'll be isolated there. Even if you are the Executioner, you'll at least need the appropriate medical assistance, and we don't know if they have the kind of facilities set up to handle someone of your…unique physiology. You're a hybrid now, if they took you to an ordinary hospital and a regular doctor got a look at your self-healing abilities they'd be falling all over themselves to cut you up and figure out what makes you tick. And that's always assuming this all isn't some trap to get you isolated then fall on you like a ton of bricks. You aren't Immortal either Nightheart, so stop acting like it!"

"I work better on my own. I don't want you getting in my way while I'm on assignment. You can never resist sticking your nose in and that could end up putting you in the line of fire. The assignment will be in less jeopardy without you there causing a distraction for me and getting under foot."

"I'm touched by your concern," he said sarcastically. "You know, it's so flattering that you consider me more of a hindrance than a help."

"I've made no secret of it."

Hunter frowned at her insensitive manner. Nightheart was being pig-headed again. But his small amount of telepathy told him that deep down, she was concerned for his safety, and that her gruff manner was manufactured to ward him off.

"Face it sweetheart, I'm going and you're not stopping me," he said.

"Don't push it Hunter. I am still a Nightsider, I can incapacitate you."

"But you won't."

"Wanna bet?"

"My my my, are you two fighting again? What is it this time?" The dulcet voice of Doctor Mian Ishora rang from the table near where they had sat down after collecting their food (arguing the entire way of course).

Doctor Ishora was a lovely young woman, deep ebony skin, perfect white teeth, sharp and perceptive black eyes. Tall and lanky, she carried herself with pride and confidence but there was no mistaking the compassion in her eyes and her commitment to healing hurts and curing illness.

"The usual," said Hunter. "Nightheart's just being difficult again."

"Well if you'd just give in and stay here, I wouldn't be so difficult," she retorted. "Good afternoon doctor."

"Good afternoon. Hunter, I just got orders. You're to be given a full work-up, they want you scanned, sprayed, inoculated and virus shielded. Apparently they're worried about you contracting some alien contaminant on your next mission."

To give Hunter credit, he tried very hard not to smile in triumph. Nightheart pretended not to see the smirk that escaped and sighed in resignation. He was going.

"Also, they want me to come along with a portable med unit," Doctor Ishora continued. "They want the resident expert in Nightsider biology in attendance on our Executioner, just in case something unexpected should happen."

The smirk widened. Hunter looked positively gleeful with gratified ego. That was two major points for him.

"You can stop smiling now," Nightheart grumped. 

The doctor and Hunter exchanged a glance that spoke volumes.

"Aww, is poor Nightheart feeling little miffed because she doesn't get to go on the mission all by herself?" Hunter teased.

Nightheart chose not to dignify the teasing with a retort and ordered her meal in peace.

"And you…need to eat more," Doctor Ishora meddled dialing in a double portion of what Nightheart had just ordered, which earned her an irritated look. "Man cannot live on nutrapaste alone."

"I refuse to qualify this Outworlder slop you serve me as food. I don't know what it is that you do to your feed-animals that makes the meat taste so odd but it can't be healthy. Don't trust it unless you kill it yourself I always say," she replied, looking at the burger patty, slice of pizza and basket of greasy French fries Hunter had just ordered with suspicion.

"Now who in the civilized world actually kills their own food?" Hunter rebutted. "Food comes in packages, like it's supposed to. If you kill something from the wild it could have a disease and you wouldn't even know it until after you'd eaten it. Packaged foods have been scanned and examined for those dangers and you know it's safe to eat."

"It isn't natural," Nightheart argued. "Man was meant to hunt his own food, be part of the cycle… hunters and prey. That's the problem with outworlders. They don't think they're part of anything larger than what they themselves build."

"Oh don't start this again."

"Soooo…" said the good doctor in a confiding tone. "You two know where we're headed? I'm not usually hauled out of my med-fac, to go star-hopping with you two. Usually you just ship her back to me to get her patched up."

"Well, due to unique circumstances I can't discuss here out in the open, we won't be able to ship back until she's terminated all the Nightsiders," said Hunter. "Pack for primitive conditions, we don't know what we're going to see when we get there."

Doctor Ishora looked intrigued, but said no more. Nightheart finished her meal in silence, as usual.

* * * 

"I don't know Zechs," said Noin. "I don't like the idea of pinning all our hopes on a child," said Noin as they walked down the hallway to the quarters that the President had assigned to them. A lovely suite, even if some of the technology was vastly beyond anything they had back in their own alternaty.

Zechs considered his impressions of the "Executioner." A young person, possibly not even much older than Relena. Not very tall, razor thin and whipcord tough, with golden bronze skin. Her dark complexion did not really belong to someone from the Orient, she did not have the slanted eyes…some form of Native perhaps? He shook his head. Whatever. 

"Did she really strike you as so irresponsible?" Zechs persued. He would like to get Noins impressions of the girl and her partner. Noin was more in touch with her intuitive nature, sensed things with her heart, and that granted her a certain advantage when reading people. Zechs, relied solely on his solder's instincts and logic in situations such as that, so between them they usually managed a pretty accurate reading.

"No, not at all" said Noin. "If anything she seemed to take her responsibilities very seriously." 

"And what about her partner?"

"I've seen guys dressed like he was around the base. He must be part of some sort of military organization," she offered. "But he didn't carry himself like a soldier, didn't snap to attention or make any sort of formal salute to his president. I'd say he was part of a group structured more like the Preventors."

"He seemed rather young also. Do you think it's common practice to employ people just barely out of adolescence here?"

"I'd say, after meeting that girls eyes, that she's no more a child than _you_ are. Besides, they have a lot of new settlements in this Alternaty. Frontier life can be rough, kids probably grow up fast. It was like that in our own history at one point if you'd recall."

"She looked perfectly relaxed, like she was accustomed to being in control of the situation, or that if she wasn't in control of it it was only a matter of time before she _took _control. She didn't look like she missed much either, her eyes took in every detail. She also didn't make any noise when she walked. She doesn't look like a soldier either, more like an…assassin."

"That would track with what she said earlier. That her…kind were originally trained as assassins."

"Can she be trusted with my sister's life?" asked Zechs. It was one of his few vulnerabilities, his sister. "If she's an Assassin…"

"Heero's assassin-trained. He hasn't let us down yet. Set a thief to catch a thief after all."

Zechs frowned at the mention of his old arch-nemesis' name. He still did not like the idea of entrusting his baby-sister's life to some _boy_, her own _age_, endowed with all of the magical hormones therein. Ex-solder-assassin-mercenary or not. Especially one whom she had made no effort to hide her attraction towards. Dangerous combination as far as he was concerned.

"Aside of that," Noin continued. "I think that if she's risked so much fighting against her own kind for a people she doesn't appear to trust or like very much then she can be trusted to protect the lives of the people in our world just as though she were fighting for the ones in this one."

"Speculation," Zechs dismissed. "This girl _kills_ for a living. The Alliance assigned a watcher to her. We've hired her to kill for us, to protect my sister. I'd like to know she'll do the job and not be tempted by the thought of having free reign to 'drain life energies.' Don't her kind need these life energies to sustain their own lives? The president mentioned that the other Nightsiders put a lot of value on how powerful they are, that the more life-energies they drain the more powerful they become. So…maybe she goes rogue, slips the leash, pumps up her power and comes back for a hostile take-over. No one could stop her, from what I gather. If she's a mercenary and goes to the highest bidder…"

"Well, they say everybody has their price. It depends on what hers is. Maybe we should talk to her privately. Sound her out, get a feel for the room. It can't hurt. And frankly Zechs, we need her. We've tried taking these guys, they just _won't die_!"

"Let's go."

They straightened their jackets and left the room, looking for the Executioner they'd just hired.

* * *

Nightheart went for a wander in the immense gardens on the grounds of the Alliance Headquarters by herself after lunch. Hunter was with the Doctor, organizing things for the trip. It had been way too long since she'd felt real, true solid earth beneath her feet. Breathing non-recycled air, wind on her face, real wind, not air being blown through a vent but the ebb and flow of it. The gardens were a little too manicured for her taste. She was more accustomed to the wild wood, running free with the wind running through her hair, an overgrown game trail, the springy feel of soft earth beneath her feet, the rustle of leaves, the scent of pine and growing things filling her lungs…

Homeland, she thought longingly, tugging on her constricting white dress uniform again. She'd never understand how these Outworlders thought _or_ their ridiculous sense of decorum. They seemed to have a set of clothes for every occasion. Granted, her own people liked to dress in decorative costumes, but at least theirs were functional as well as beautiful. These uniforms they seemed to prize so highly…they were so damned restrictive. 

Nightheart's sensitive hearing picked up the sound of footfall approaching her. She scented the two who had been in the office earlier. The woman a soft mix of lavender and jasmine from her soap and leather polish from her shoes. The man a mix of aftershave and gun-oil.

No threat. She didn't bother to turn.

"Hello," she said. "I trust you find your accommodations satisfactory?"

"Yes," said Noin. "They're very nice. Although, a lot of the technology is beyond us and I can't figure out what that second stall in the bathroom is for. I turned the knob, but, no water came out."

"Vibe-scrub. I also trust that you didn't come here for small talk. What did you seek me out for?"

"You're a in a sense?" questioned Zechs.

"In a sense," she said. "I work for the Alliance. They pay me to kill for them, but I fight because people will get hurt if I don't. I dislike the thought of a Normal being forced to face certain death at the hands of a Nightsider as a result of my inaction. That is unacceptable."

"I see. So you do it because deep down you really care about what happens to others," said Noin, reassured. "You don't seem so bad."

Nightheart looked at her measuringly, her face noncommittal, debating whether she should give a small demonstration of exactly how bad she really was. She killed people. They were inside her head when they went, she took their lives for her own use and part of her went with them every time.

"When am I scheduled to leave for the assignment? I'll have to get this over with quickly and return to my own alternity before the Nightsiders here realize I'm gone."

"I understand. We're going to open up another gate in the morning, that'll take us back to our own dimension," said Zechs. "We've got the number of Nightsiders who've crossed over and the president gave us their files."

"How many?"

"Twelve," Noin said. "Our people couldn't even handle _one_. We tried everything. Bullets didn't seem to hurt it, we tried a grenade but it wouldn't go off, then we tried a plasma ball but the creature just erected some kind of a sheild around itself. The few mobile suits we kept around for emergencies just stopped working around it. Are these things some kind of immortal demi-gods or something? The Nightsider seemed to be only amused at our efforts to destroy it."

"Despite all appearances, no…it's not Immortal. But they would simply love for you to think that," she said assuredly. Nightheart went on to explain that every thing was either a clever use of the Nightsider's own powers or the use of technology from an alternaty that was superior to their own. 

"The grenades not going off for example, that would most probably be telekinesis jamming the triggering mechanism. Same thing for the mobile suits, they probably triggered the Manual Override device or some such. As to the energy-shielding, there are a lot of suits that come with such devices built in. my working uniform for example, some of those have Shields. Oh, and Nighthsiders have certain other abilities as well, abilities that trick the mind and the eye to avoid detection, abilities that can temporarily make a person act in a way contrary to their nature if the person is particularly weak willed."

"They're hard little buggers to catch that's for damned sure," Hunter called out cheerfully in his british accent. "They have ways and ways of getting around things…Oy! I really wish that the Committee had never though up Project Dracula! It's one big headache that's what it is."

Nightheart nodded emphatically, looking weary. 

"I came to find you Nightheart. Doctor Ishora wants to run a few tests on you to take a look at the health of your Symbiont. Then she wants you in the Goop-tank for a while."

"My Symbiont and I are fine Hunter," she growled.

"Still, better safe than sorry in this case. We might no have access to everything that we have here so it's best to go into the situation as prepared as possible."

"I see, if that is the reasoning then I will comply."

Nightheart said nothing further, simply nodding at Zechs and Noin and walking from the garden towards where the medical facilities were located.

"Hey guys," Hunter said, always willing to be friendly. One caught more flies with honey than with vinegar after all, a fact which Nightheart had yet to catch on to. Then again, the flies she caught probably wouldn't respond to honey very well, if at all.

"Hunter wasn't it?" said Noin.

"That's my name lovely lady," he said with a courtly bow and a roguish grin. "And just so you know, I'm a Scorpio, I enjoy piloting cruisers, sparring and long walks by the beach."

Noin chuckled as Hunter gave her a flirtatious smile and a wink to show he was joking.

"So, give us the dirt…what's she really like?" asked Noin in a confiding tone. "How long have you known her?"

"Well, out of everyone here, I've known her the longest. We traveled together for a while when we were younger, I was a bit of a space pirate back then, more of a renegade. It was fun. We traveled with mum for about three years there, then she died on a routine raid. I joined up with the Guardians, Nightheart and I parted ways for a while, and I didn't hear from her. We met up by accident while I was trying to infiltrate a top secret Committee Institute on Mars, Syria Plainum to be precise. She was on the inside trying to break out…"

Hunter paused in his narrative, trying to decide what it was safe to tell these people.

"She was part of an experiment, one with a high casualty rate as it turns out, and she hasn't really been the same since in more ways than one. Given from what I've read in the experiments files I think she's remarkably resilient to have come out with her ethics intact. Now, she kills for a living, and that's changed her too. But I have never once doubted either her loyalty or her commitment to protecting lives. Ever."

Noin and Zechs nodded in satisfaction.

"Oh, and just so you know, you and your partner are going to be working with someone. Several someone's in fact."

"Nightheart won't like that. She doesn't even like _me_ coming along when she's on assignment. To her Normals, that's regular people who don't have Nightsider abilities, are to be protected. She does _not_ work with them. She considers them a liability since the other Nightsiders like to use them as shields then kill them when they've served their purpose."

"These people are the best we have," said Noin. 

"I'm telling you, it won't matter to her. Don't expect her to very receptive. I however, being a Normal, have no objection to working with other mere mortals. Tell me a bit about them."

"Well, first off there's Miss Relena, she's the person we're hiring Nightheart to protect. She's a key political figure and to many a symbol of hope and peace. She's also sometimes the only one who holds our fragile peace together. She's also really very sweet, but she can be incredibly stubborn when she thinks she's right."

"And she's Zechs' baby sister?"

"Yes," Zechs replied. "We're related by blood."

"Ah, I see. And who else?"

"Then, there's Heero. He's Relena's personal body guard."

Hunter caught the momentary sour look that flashed across Zechs face. Protective Elder Brother Syndrome?

"He's an assassin and soldier, good at about everything that needs doing. He may look young, but that doesn't really matter, if I told you stories about half the things he's done you wouldn't believe it. But just don't expect a whole lot of interaction with him, he's usually pretty intent on his mission."

"Hmmm, okay. Anyone else?"

"yeah, Duo Maxwell. You'll probably get along with him, most people do. At first glance it seems like he never takes anything seriously, but he always comes through when we need him. He's great at shadow games, breaking and entering, and not a bad pickpocket either. His greates strength lies in his ability to get certain circles of people to give him information."

"Sounds like we have a lot in common already, that's what I do."

"Then there's Trowa. He's the other quiet one. He doesn't often say much but when he does it's worth listening to because he's got a keen intellect. He's a very efficient and professional fighter and he also specializes in infiltration. You could say he's our knife in the dark, there generally isn't much he doesn't know about sooner or later."

"I presume he's the one who told you about the Nightsiders?"

"No, actually it was Quatre. Quatre Raberbe Winner is the heir to the winner fortune and also another ex-gundam pilot."

"Gundam?"

"A very special kind of suit…It's a long story," said Noin, brushing it aside to continue. "He's the one most in touch with his kindness in the group. I worked with him in the Sanc Kingdom and even though he's a pacifist he can be a very formidable opponent. He's the strategist of the group with a firm knowledge of tactics and an instinct for how the enemy will move."

"I remember," muttered Zechs darkly.

"Then there's Wufei Chang. He works for the Preventors full time. He originally had this…thing about women not being allowed to fight…But I think he's gotten over that. He has a high standard of moral rectitude and if one doesn't meet those standards they will be dismissed. He also has an obsession with honor and integrity. Be careful around him, he can be touchy."

"I see. He sounds a trifle like Nightheart. She's got this thing for honor too it gets a bit tiring after a while. She seems to hold herself to this impossible standard…You'd have to be God to measure up to it."

"Hmm. How interesting. I wonder if she's a feminist."

"In a big way," said Hunter snorting.

Noin looked positively gleeful.

"Oh, this should be very interesting indeed. Last and certainly not least on our list is Sally. She's my best friend and the only woman I know of who seems to have to boundless patience to put up with Wufei and his alternations of insufferable arrogance and bouts of self-pity. She specializes in guerrilla warfare tactics, and weapons work. You should see her gun collection, it's huge! Aside of guns, Sally is an excellent ground fighter and good with traps and ambushes."

"Sounds like you guys have a pretty good team set up," said Hunter. "I can't wait to meet them. Nightheart probably won't be around much, or at least you won't be able to see her. I'll be your official liaison for the time and keep you abreast of her progress."

"How's she going to protect my sister if she isn't _with_ my sister?" demanded Zechs.

"Oh don't worry, Nightheart has her ways" Hunter reassured them both. "I couldn't even begin to explain them to you but be assured, your sister will be safe. Nightheart doesn't give her word to complete an assignment and then go and neglect the specifics."

Very well then," said Zechs. "Your president tells me that so far her record is impeccable. I'll trust her methods."

"Glad to hear it. Well, now that we've got some things worked out, I'm going to go double check to make sure that all of the items I requested for our tour of duty in your world have been taken care of. I'll see you tomorrow morning," then with a jaunty wave, Hunter was off.

"Huh. Cheerful fellow," Noin noted. 

"He looks like a womanizer, do you think he'll behave himself around my sister?"

Noin rolled her eyes. 

"I'm sure he'll be _fine_. Even if he _does_ attempt to get fresh with her she's surrounded by body guards and Heero Yuy is not likely to let her wander off for a love tryst. You know how protective he is of her."

"Protective? I'd call it possessive myself," Zechs growled.

"And even so…Relena is nineteen dear."

"That's still not old enough."

"She could have grey hairs and a house of her own and she'd still never be old enough to you Zechs."

"I do believe you have got it surrounded," he replied flippantly to her exasperated tone.

"Honestly Zechs, you have too little faith in your sister's good sense. She a mature and capable girl. And besides that, you don't even know that this Hunter is remotely interested in her. Who knows, he may just have someone else here that he likes. I think you're worrying about problems that don't even exist."

"Hmm, you're probably right," he said. "Still, if this Nightheart is as good as her reports indicate I would wish that she could stay. I would feel far better with a professional _female_ guarding my sister. I sill do not like the thought of Yuy spending so much time around her. You know what kind of an effect that life-threatening situations can have on a persons hormones and sexual drives."

"Do I ever. I can well recall some of the amazing trysts that you and I had after some of our training sessions."

"That's my point exactly," said Zechs with an air of triumph. "And we have Heero hanging around with the constant temptation of my all-too-willing sister and you don't think he's going to take advantage of this?"

"I think the only one taking advantage of the situation is probably going to be Relena," said Noin with a chuckle. Zechs frowned. Noin continued

"She's a healthy, fully grown woman endowed with all of the appetites therein. Relena is responsible and she won't do anything she'd have cause to regret later, so whatever decision she makes will most probably be carefully thought through. Even if you have not had the best of luck communicating with her about _that_ particular subject, she and I have had several long talks about it. Relena had shown wisdom and maturity reaching beyond her years about the topic of sex just the same as she has about politics and warfare. First of all she's not into casual sex, secondly she's a classic case study of Unicorn Syndrome."

"Unicorn Syndrome?" questioned Zechs, that sounded promising.

"It's a term among women although it does on occasion apply to men too. Unicorn Syndrome is where a woman decides she isn't going to bed down with anyone unless it's nothing short of true love. Due to Relena's perfectionist nature she's decided to wait until the right time at the right place and with the right person. That may or may not be Heero, the decision is hers. And given what I know of Relena she isn't going to…lose her purity in a back alley somewhere in a fling of passion, she's too controlled."

"But even the most controlled of people have had their judgment skewed by hormones," He said. 

"It doesn't run in your family," she said flatly. "Zechs…you're going to have to trust her. And Heero. She wouldn't do anything to harm herself or her career, her position and the work she does means a lot to her. If sleeping with someone outside of marriage would jeopardize that there isn't a doubt in my mind that Heero or any other man would find himself on the other side of her bedroom door, alone. That's just going to have to be enough for us."

Zechs made a noncommittal grunt, Noin took that to mean he was at least thinking over her words. 

"Come on, let's take a look at some of the amazing leaps in technology they have here before we have to go home," said Noin.

"I would like to see those plasma weapons they have…"

End chapter two. 


	4. Comes the Executioner

Nightheart followed Lady Une to the Lab inside the Preventors compound. She made certain to keep her senses alert, taking in smells and slight tastes as she breathed as well as sights and sounds. It created a better mental map that way. She also continued to study the aura of the woman she followed, ascertaining whether or not she was a useful Normal or if she was merely a functionary. Everything she had sensed thus far seemed to indicate that Lady Une was deeply involved with her Guardians, or "Preventors" (Nightheart thought that they probably served in much the same capacity). 

Meanwhile, Hunter and his remaining retinue were shown around by Fire and her partner before being taken to meet the Vice Foreign Minister. During that time Millirado took it upon himself to acquire a bit more information about their strange new enemies as well as the one who was called the Executioner.

"Your President Takahashi seemed very confident that your partner would fulfill her Mandates quickly and completely. Is she truly prepared to kill on our behalf?" he asked. Zechs was not one to mince words, diplomacy was his sisters area of expertise. Formality and social tap-dancing did not suit soldiers.

"She'll do it alright," Hunter reassured them in a surprisingly grim tone (quite at odds with his normally cheerful demeanor). "She would say that 'it is necessary that these Nightsiders be terminated for there is no other way to end their threat.' Their powers and abilities cannot be bound and they require Human life-energies to keep their Symbionts strong. The ones we're dealing with also desire power and a higher position within the Nightsider Court, possibly even the First Circle. We'll both work end their threat by terminating their lives because that is the only way it can be done."

"First Circle?" questioned Noin. "I was not aware that Nightsider Assassins had a social structure. I've only heard that they consider themselves somewhat outside of Human law."

"She told me about it and this is what she said to me. It was brought about when the Nightsiders broke away from the control of their master's and creators," said Hunter following along behind Zechs, memorizing the twists and turns of the grounds and surveying their security measures. Their technology was…well, less advanced than what he was used to dealing with. The Nightsiders wouldn't even have to use their powers to sneak past. He'd have to make some adjustments with some of his own equipment soon. 

He continued: "To start at the beginning…when a test subject made a successful Transition and bonded with a Symbiont the subject was put into Conditioning. There the subject was either mind-wiped of all humanity and personality and rebuilt into their ideal Nightsider Assassin, or, if the subject was slightly more cooperative and not requiring the mind-wipe, they were simply put through a rigorous form of brainwashing."

"So these beings no longer even think like a Human being? Then how is it that your friend had retained her own Humanity?"

"From what she's told me, she was stubborn, and clever, and very, very lucky. She hid her symptoms of Transition and they judged her a dud. They were taking her out to kill her when she made a break for it. That's when she ran into me on my first mission as a Guardian, trying to infiltrate the Institute and get some information on its Black Projects. She was in bad shape…_real_ bad shape."

"So how does their society work?" Noin asked quickly. The look on Hunters face prompted her not to pursue further questions about that particular story.

"It depends," said Nightheart. "The microcosm of their society is still pretty young, but effective none-the-less. When the Nightsiders rebelled, and broke away from the control of their makers, they originally went on massive feeding sprees, killing people left and right, and absorbing their energies to grow stronger. Slowly, out of the chaos and uncertainty of their rebellion, a structured and hierarchical micro-society grew. It was based on Power. The Nightsiders could grow very powerful based on the amount of life-energies one Drained from the innocent. The most powerful Nightsiders were the ones who had Drained the most lives, they sort of ruled over the weaker ones by using the power they had collected to control or influence or rule through fear. A Nightsider can move up or down within the structure by gathering more energies as a result of Draining more people."

"And this is where your friend stepped in and offered her services as the Alliances only Executioner?" Zechs surmised.

"Shortly before that, but yes," Hunter replied. The continued with his narrative.

"For a time they were united under the banner of Thanatos, who had started the Rebellion as a way to gain power and control. It was he who had set up the little Nightsider Conclave based on power and crowned himself king. His closest rivals are the Nightsiders in the First Circle. The First Circle was the highest possible rank next to becoming the Nightlord. Nightlord Thanatos fights aggressively and ruthlessly for his position."

"He is your greatest enemy then I take it?"

"And the only one who can match Nightheart's power," he agreed. Then he continued his explanation.

"Within the Nightsider's court structure there are Four overall levels of Power called Accumulations and within each Accumulation there are three Circles, making twelve in all. The weakest Nightsiders are the Twelfth Circle and the strongest are the First Circle. Once a Nightsider has drained enough life-energy and accumulated enough power to master another Ability he or she is allowed to move up to the next rung. To do this is not easy, for the Nightsiders in the Circle above do not want an interloper in their power, and the ones below would just as soon see the person dead so that they might get their position."

"I imagine this causes much conflict among the Nightsiders does it not?"

"Indeed it does. To prevent internecine "wars" Nightlord Thanatos introduced a policy of organized combat to control the fights that would eventually happen anyway called Challenge. Through Challenge, a Nightsider who felt that he or she had acquired enough power through the killing of innocent people to move forward could Challenge someone in the next Circle to a Fight. The fight could be one of weapons, hand-to-hand combat or the use of the abilities granted by the Symbiont to its Nightsider."

"Wise of him. It sounds like Nightlord Thanatos may have the best interests of his people in mind as well as his own interests."

"Nightlord Thanatos is a difficult man to understand. He seems to be only power-hungry and ruthless, pure evil…but he has demonstrated a desire to see the Nightsiders well-served and stable. I think he only desires this because it will serve him as well. And recently things in the Nightsider Court have been changing. A new ability has been discovered, and with it has come some terrible changes. Nightsiders have begun to diverge from the accepted ways of doing things. This new ability grants a Nightsider the power to use Nightsiders below their own abilities as…" Hunter searched for the word. "Channels? They can tie another Nightsiders power to their own and take the life-energies that Nightsider absorbs as their own; so instead of the weak nightsider getting the energies to feed its own Symbiont, the energy goes to the strong Nightsider to fuel its power."

"What happens to the weak Nightsider?"

"If the Sect-Master is relatively kind, the weak Nightsider will get just enough energy to appease its Symbiont. If not, then the weak Nightsider eventually goes into a Hunger-rage and starts draining anything that moves. As the master grows stronger, the weak Nightsider is effectively its slave, saving the Sect master from having to go out and Hunt for itself."

"Sect-Masters?"

"They broke off from the original Court and formed Sects of their own in their own territories. These sects started out as a way for those who no longer wished to pursue power within the Conclave to have their own little court and have some power and freedom of their own. But eventually these mini-courts become as bad as the Main Court, where the weak are oppressed by the strong. Those who no longer could hunt became beholden to the more powerful Nightsiders to provide them with life-giving energies. They become slaves to their Sect-Masters. The weak made the kills but their Sect-Masters have bound the weaker ones own Draining power in such a way that the energies they Drain goes directly to the Sect-Master. Even Nightlord Thanatos cannot destroy a powerful Sect-Master, and their territories are avoided by all but us. Apparently Thanatos uses Nightheart as a tool. In this instance, to rid himself of his loose-cannon rivals."

"This sounds like a dangerous thing to go seeking out. Granted, some of the abilities demonstrated by the assassin that came for Relena are incredible, but the cost is not something I'd be willing to pay no matter how powerful it made me."

"Surrendering ones past and ones humanity? Yeah, I'd say that it's a bit much too, mate," said Hunter flippantly. 

*

Nightheart was shown to a chamber where ten bodies were lined up side by side on morgue slabs. Most of them were in fine business suits. 

"I take it these are the victims, or presumed victims?" Nightheart surmised. 

"Yes. How is it that you can tell whether or not a Nightsider takes a life? Why can't a non-Nightsider tell whether or not a victim is a Nightsider kill?"

"I can read their energy signature. When a Nightsider Drains a Human, they leave behind a signature trail of power among the currents. I can perceive their kills and their energy signatures with my abilities but a normal human would be unable to perceive this trail."

Nightheart closed her eyes and shifted he vision from that of Normal sight to where she could perceive the energies of Nightsiders and their ilk. She looked at the first victim…sure enough, there was the residual glow of a Nightsider kill, sort of like a colored glowing fog that hovered around the corpse for days after the soul had departed. It carried a unique flavor, as individual as scent, that was perceivable almost the same way.

"It's a definite Kill, and I recognize the signature…a woman who calls herself Demise. She's in the Tenth Circle. I have a Mandate for her."

Nightheart moved on to the next victim. The strange sense of energies that was not quite smell and not quite taste seeped into her consciousness.

"Another Kill," she said, looked at the rest of the bodies. "All of them are Kills, all of them done by different Nightsiders."

"There are twelve of them here in our world. There are only ten victims so far."

"That you know of," Relena qualified. "The real body-count is likely much greater. The Assassins are here in this world to build up their Accumulations, they will be out there among the general populace taking energies freely, and not just taking only from their assigned targets. That was where the Institute went wrong, thinking they could control their creations by limiting the amount of energies that they absorbed. The Nightsiders had other ideas of what they would do while they were out on their missions, they slipped off for side-trips to drain a few extra innocents. Whoever invited the Assassins over here to your alternaty is definitely getting a whole lot more trouble that they bargained for. It would not surprise me in the least to discover that they will turn on their inviters and get rid of them when they have served out their useful purpose."

"You're so reassuring," said a dry voice from behind her. Nightheart turned to face the source, she had been concentrating on identifying which of her Targets had killed whom that she had been aware the approacher only vaguely. Nightheart looked at the person, glowing with ephemeral mist churning with a rainbow of colors. Oh, she had forgotten…she was still snapped into her soul-sight.

Threat? she wondered briefly. It wasn't a Nightsider, probably just one of the people who worked there then. Nightheart quelled the Power rising to her call within her (just in case she had to blast away any attackers) and looked at the person inquiringly.

"Is there a reason why you are interrupting my work or did you disturb me only to beat about the bush wasting time playing twenty questions as you Outworlders seem so fond of doing," Nightheart asked bluntly.

"There's been another victim Lady Une," said the young man, addressing the woman hovering near Nightheart as she identified who the killers were. "The description of the crime scene matches what you said you wanted to be notified about. However, the guards outside were not choking, they just suddenly and mysteriously keeled over. The autopsy shows no cause of death that we can discern."

"Show me," ordered Nightheart. The functionary's brow wrinkled in puzzlement at taking orders from an unauthorized source, he looked to Lady Une for confirmation. Lady Une nodded.

"This young woman is a specialist that we've brought in from outside to help us with this case. She has carte blanche to use whatever resources and materials she required to fulfill her job."

"Aye ma'am," said the young man. "If you'll come with me?" he gestured before him. Nightheart fixed him with a cool look and signaled that he would be proceeding her. She did not trust exposing her back to anyone, especially not when she was a stranger in a strange land.

*

Relena covertly glanced up from the document she was perusing, a little last minute fine-tuning and editing before she presented it to the Council the next day. He stood still as a carved marble statue, posted just inside her door, Relena was half tempted to get up, walk over there and make certain he was still breathing! He had not so much as twitched a muscle for the entire three hours that Relena had been working in her…well actually, Quatre's office. His shoulders were braced against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, head down…he looked like he was asleep, but there was not a doubt in Relena's mind that he was taking in everything. He was no more asleep than she was! She breifly entertained the amusing notion of seeing if he was like one of those famous old guards in England that wouldn't blink or move no matter what one did to them. 

"Heero?" she inqured tentatively. He cracked an eyelid and glances sideways at her.

"Hm?" he asked in acknowledgement of her delicate query.

"I was checking to see if you were still alive over there, you didn't appear to be breathing, or blinking and you haven't moved in hours. Don't you need something to drink?"

"No."

Relena shrugged and turned back to her work. If he wanted to go without eating or drinking while he was on duty, that was his business and not hers unless he decided to make it so. She didn't think it particularly wise, but that was his lookout. He would know better than her what his body's limitations were. He'd been there all day while she worked, the sky was the purple-blue of twilight now. Where was her brother?

"Very well, just don't keel over and hit your head on the coffee table," she said. "Blood stains are very hard to get out of carpeting." She didn't know why she needed to have the last word on the matter, but there it was.

There came a knock at Relena's door a few minutes later. Heero moved for he first time in hours (without a trace of stiffness Relena noted with envy) to go answer it.

"Relena it's us," The voice of Noin called from the other side.

Heero answered it with his customary expression of lack of joy, only to be pushed aside by Noin, followed shortly by Milliardo, who took the time to frown at him before walking over to hug his little sister. There was a third person whom he didn't recognize. Heero took some small satisfaction in detaining him. He had to endure Zech's attitude without saying anything since he was allowed to be near his sister, but this fellow had no clear call to be there at the moment, which meant that heero could do as he pleased until he was given a reason.

"We brought the Executuioner from the other Alternaty over to this one," Milliardo said. Relena looked over at the person Heero was busily ensconced in searching, patting down and running a small weapons detector over.

"Blimey mate, are you gonna give me a cavity search now?" asked the young man in an Austalio-British accent.

"Are you implying you need one?" he asked.

"Thanks anyway love, but you aren't my type," he said with a grin then sauntered past Heero into the room.

Relena's jaw about hit the floor with her tongue rolling out of her mouth to join it when she first caught sight of him. There stood one of the most handsome men that she had ever laid eyes on. He was gorgeous! Tall, lean, athletic with a robust fighters build and the hard grace of a habitual martial artist. His shoulders were broad but not overly muscular. His form spoke more of the strength that came with speed and agility rather than muscle mass, but Relena could just barely make out the chiseled pectoral muscles underneath his uniform so she could tell he was built. His shoulder length hair was wavy, raven-wing-black, and thick! Relena was immediately jealous of it, and it made her want to run her hands through it at the same time. But it was his eyes that arrested her and held her attention, he had the most incredible eyes. They were an intense, mesmerizing, impossible electric blue. A blue so utterly incredible they seemed to glow from the inside. And then he smiled. Relena had never seen such an incredible smile on a man before, she felt like she was going to melt into a pile of goo right then and there, and she couldn't help her audible gulp. 

He was clean shaven and dressed…rather strangely now that she looked at him. He wore boots, then nondescript dark pants. Over that was a dark charcoal-grey…_tunic_? Held to the waist with a matching belt with an ornate buckle in matte-black. Under the tunic was a long sleeved shirt slightly darker grey than the tunic and over all of that was a long calf-length robe-cloak of a strange material Relena knew she had never seen before. It almost seemed to shimmer part of the time, like it was going to reflect light, but it never did.

"Ah, so there's the lovely Lady we were sent here to protect… I'm Hunter Kylaran milady," he said coming forward to kiss her hand in a courtly gesture. "My life is yours if you should need it."

Relena absolutely could not help the blush that crawled its way up to her cheeks. She shyly averted her eyes and when she finally found her voice she said

"Let's hope it never comes to that." The she swallowed, clearing her throat and her sudden attraction at the same time she said. "So you're the Executioner?"

"Who me?" asked the young man in his charming accent. "No, I'm only her partner, or if you asked her, her tag-along. The alliance picked me to keep an eye on her. She's out hunting down her first Targets now, but she'll be along later. No, I'm here to hold down the fort as it were. Doctor Ishora is already setting up facilities to accommodate Nightheart."

"Nightheart? She? She's a girl?"

"Yes," said Hunter simply. "So, no offense here miss, but you look a little young to be a politician."

"You look a little young to be a warrior," Relena replied.

"Touché," he said, flashing another dazzling grin at her. Relena was suitably dazzled. "Well, I'm not technically a warrior. My main mission in life is to patrol the borders of Terra-Dome, Mars Colony and Space Nation, to look out for the interests of peace and the welfare of the Alliance as a whole. I don't actually see any good fighting action unless all other avenues have been tapped out. I'm primarily an information gatherer. My organization has been nicknamed "The Eyes and Ears of the Alliance." A very fitting description if you ask me."

"Sounds like the Preventors," said Relena. "Can I offer you some tea?"

"Oh, I love tea, but not while I'm on duty. Perhaps a trifle later luv."

Heero had spent the entirety of their exchange glaring at the newcomer, (who seemed spectacularly oblivious; was Heero losing his touch? Nah, couldn't be.) cleared his throat ostentatiously and said

"Show me your clearance, proof of identification, passport, visa, and travel papers as well as your assignment forms," he demanded.

Hunter noted that the young man in the green tank-top not only looked displeased to see him, but also had a glare that was a rival even for Nightheart when she was using her abilities to frighten someone into conformance. That was scary. He had also kept his body between himself and the young woman at all times, hovering just within lunging-reach of Hunters neck. Hunter knew, with his deeply ingrained, born-and-raised-on-the-streets instincts for survival that the lad was not one to take lightly. 

Well, neither was Hunter. If it came down to it, he had no objections about taking the obviously battle-hardened youth out for a scrap in a bar. Then they'd see who was the bigger fish.

Hunter presented the forms with a small show of reluctance. He noted that the guy frowned in momentary puzzlement when Hunter handed them over.

I guess they don't use plassies or holo-plas flimsies for their documents here, thought Hunter. He spied the paper on Relena's desk. Paper? From trees?! What a waste! This Alternity definitely was not as technologically advanced (or environmentally conscious) as Hunters own.

Heero handed the papers back to Hunter with no further comment.

"Heero, this man has been assigned here to help us," Noin said. "Please try not to kill him off casually."

"I'd appreciate that too," said Hunter lightly. "I've always rather objected to dying stupidly."

"Hunter Kylaran, this is Heero Yuy," said Noin gesturing to the man who had turned his glare up a notch. 

"Heero, Hunter…you two boys play nice." Noin said, exactly as if the two of them were her own cadets. Relena was attempting to repress a small smile. 

Hunter could never resist pushing his luck. His mother had told him that it would someday be his downfall, and he agreed that she was probably right. But still, he had to test the limits of other peoples' patience, because it was just so damned amusing to see them give into exasperation. He loved outsmarting people too. It was just so much more interesting when people were reacting exactly as he predicted they would. Oh, he wasn't _manipulative, well, maybe just a little… but he liked to think of himself as more mischievous. His prods and pokes at other people nevr had malignant intent, he just liked to see what the limit of their patience was._

"You heard the lady, play nice. That means why don't you go burn a hole into someone else's forehead with that glare of yours for a while? And that reminds me, what's _your_ level of clearance…I demand to see your authorization. I have been assigned by the President to protect this Vice Foreign Minister and I do not take kindly to being harassed by subservients! Who's your commander? Get them on the phone for me. I oughta have your badge for that…just snatch it right off your jacket."

Relena watched in a mixture of surprise and amusement as the dark-haired man turned the tables on Heero so fast her head swam. A chuckle at the new boy's antics almost escaped her, he was amusing company at least; he rather reminded her a bit of Duo. Heero, however was not quite so amused. In fact he had a rather trusty answer to when situations changed on him so suddenly, and a surefire way of shutting almost anyone up.

~kla-chleck!~ His trusty gun was simultaneously loaded, cocked, and aimed at the irritating pest from the next world. Hunter only grinned and said

"I've seen worse. Point that pea-shooter someplace else kid."

"Uh-oh," siad Relena. She had never seen any one openly insult Heero before. If she moved quickly, maybe she could stop things before the new guy got pounded into a bloody pulp fifteen minutes after meeting her.

**CRASH!**

The sound of breaking glass and something heavy thumping onto the floor near her window disrupted their little "conference" the lights went out, exactly as they had last night before the Assassin attacked her. The shadows seemed to dance while the heavy velvet curtains billowed in the breeze from the broken window.

"You boys certainly don't waste time," said Hunter, drawing out what looked like some weird form of weapon from a holster at his side.

"Hunter!" the shadows hissed. "You should know by now that your weapons do not kill me."

"Maybe not, but I know they certainly take it out of you for a while. Weaken you with the need to heal your bodies and recharge your Symbionts. Nightheart says she can't wait to find you by the way."

And with that, Hunter fired at the heart of the shadows, but only ended up blowing a burn into the walls.

"Damn! I'd forgotten how fast they move," he cursed. He turned to the boy who'd been about to kill him only a moment ago. "Get her out of here. Myself and these two," (gestured to Noin and Milliardo) "Will draw him off, or at least attempt to hold him back for a bit. Get her as far away as you can. Get moving!"

Heero didn't hesitate, but grabbed Relena's arm and hauled her through the doorway at their backs while Noin and Milliardo tipped over the desk to use as a shield and barrier from behind which to fire. They hauled out their pieces and fired whenever the shadows moved.

"I can't see him!" said Noin over the sound of gunfire, and the odd noise that Hunter's plasma weapon made.

"Keep firing," sias Milliardo and Hunter at the same time.

Heero was running down through the corridors of the large estate house dragging Relena in tow.

"Heero," *gasp* "can't we," *pant* " just rest," *gasp. "For a minute?" *gasp* she said as he hauled her by the wrist at a speed much greater than she was accustomed to traveling. Her breath was coming heavily, not that she was out of shape, but running wasn't really her thing. Plus, she was getting a stitch in her side.

"No," he said. Not unless she wanted to end up dead that was…he left that unspoken comment hanging in the air. Relena said no more for a little while. Heero dragged her down the long corridors and at last found a room he felt was defensible. Relena could have cried with relief and exhaustion at this point. Her legs felt rubbery and her chest was burning.

She crouched in a corner panting and gasping for breath, while Heero set about making the room a little more defensible. Barricading the doors, checking his clip. He pushed Relena behind an overstuffed couch and told her to stay there and be quiet. He crouched in a defensive position over her, gun drawn and ready, listening for the slightest sound of the approach of his enemy.

His old mentor Odin Lowe had once told him that most of a war was spent waiting. When he'd been young and had not actually taken part in a battle, the advice had not made much sense; now he knew better and had learned how very true those words were. The old military saw about "Hurry up and wait" was alive and kicking in 199.

Relena fidgeted a bit and made as if to get up probably thinking the coast was clear. More people had been killed based on that assumption than he cared to think about. He shoved her back down into her former position and shot her a feirce look in th dark that plainly said 'you don't move, until I tell you to move.' She meekly regained her former position and continued waiting silently. After a few minutes of what must have been to her unbearable silence she looked as if she were about to say something but before she could Heero gestured sharply that she was to remain silent. She subsided and he returned to watching the door like a cat at a mouse hole. 

The shadows in the room started to dance once more and another eerie voice pervaded the air.

"You cannot escape me little mouse," said the voice. "I know you're there. Your little Normal can't protect you either. There's only one person who can be our downfall and she's safely behind in the other Alternity. Your vital essence is mine."

Crash!! 

The door flew inward and crashed against the opposite wall. Heero started emptying his gun into the silhouette framed against the doorway. 

Crash!! 

The tinkling of glass from the window being smashed in joined the sound of gunfire. There was another invader coming in through the window! This one was glowing with a strange misty-white light shot through with tiny stars. Unnatural. It had to be a Nightsider.

So Heero opened fire on that one too. Nothing was going to harm Relena, not while it was his mission to protect her.

The new Nightsider turned to fix him with a glacial look of utter disdain. He stalked over to where Heero stood. Heero continued firing, and watched as its torso jerked back with each shot, but it simply kept coming, and it did not look pleased with Heero for his efforts. 

"Give me that you stupid Geshkana!" he…no, it sounded like a _woman_. Heero's eyes widened in shock as the Nightsider took his gun and crushed it one handed, like a beer can. 

"Sit down before you hurt yourself," she said haughtily. "And stay out of my way."

She shoved him to the ground over Relena and turned her attention towards the Nightsider.

"Executioner Nightheart…What a surprise to see you here," said the other Nightsider smoothly.

"Nightsider 1137, alias-codename Havoc," she stated seriously. "I have been assigned and authorized by the Alliance to terminate your existence for the acts of killing you have perpetrated. My Mandate has been signed and sanctioned. As the Executioner it is my duty to kill you."

"Oh that was lovely, can we have a round of applause for her little speech?" he asked of the room in general. Then he turned to her. "You are welcome to try to little bitch, but I'm not going to lie down and let you." He lashed out at her with a bolt of power collected from his accumulation pool. It bounced harmlessly off Nightheart's shield.

"I know." Nightheart looked calm and unruffled. "You're Sixth Circle, no sense of style, no finesse, which is why you'll never make it very far. In fact, your life path ends here. If you wish, I will give you a quick and slightly more honorable death. You may face me in combat with blades."

"I'm going to lop your tiny head off that scawny neck of yours Executioner," he promised her, and drew his weapon a hook-bladed thing that was sharp on one side and came to a wicked looking point which was serrated on the other. He came at her, not giving her a chance to draw, and Nightheart merely stood her ground, blocking his clumsy swings with the edges of her wrist-sheath gauntlets. 

You aren't so tough," Havoc sneered. He actually did. "I'll bet the only reason you've beaten all of those others is because you wouldn't meet them in open combat."

"You are not the first who has said this," Nightheart informed him, her face devoid of anything but concentration on his next move, reading the telltale signs of his muscles and body. 

The guy didn't have a prayer, Nightheart reflected after a few minutes of having read his moves and assesses his skill level. She could have beaten him when she was but a green child studying the Art in her Homeland. He was unskilled, uncoordinated; he used power and brute strength instead of his wits and fine-tuned control, and he had too much pride in his own meager abilities as a Nightsider to believe that he could be beaten. He relied too heavily on his Nightsider abilities without having learned to discipline necessary to harness those abilities to their fullest potential. 

Nightheart continued to fight him using minimal effort. After all, the night was still young and she had eleven others to track down and eradicate still, it would be wise to conserve her energy.

"Stop toying with me!" he screamed at her.

Oooh, and impatient too, she noted.

"Very well." She sprang at him, a deadly shadow like a panther pouncing on its prey. She put one hand on his chin, the other on the side of his head and twisted. In an ordinary human, such a move would have snapped his neck, but for a Nightsider it was a moments inconvenience. However, a moment was all she needed.

Shiing! The sound of a blade being drawn was followed quickly by the sickening sound of flesh and bone and cartilage being cleaved into. There came the sound of something wet splattering against the wall. Blood most probably.

"Kresh'tak! He got blood on my working uniform, I just got this one today too," the Nightsider Executioner muttered in annoyance. 

Heero looked over the rim of the couch to observe what the Nightsider was doing. She was knelt by the prone form of the Nightsider that had been hunting them and he watched as she put her left hand onto his forehead, right where the third eye would be. Her hand started to glow with a misty white light shot through with tiny stars that danced…no, flowed, like a river being absorbed into her skin. For a moment they both seemed to glow, then the luminescence faded from the Nightsider called Havoc and all that was left was a dead empty shell. The Executioner knelt there, shuddering for a moment.

"It never gets any easier," Heero heard her murmur to no one in particular.

The Executioner leaned on her weapon, a long staff curved and recurved blade that glowed along its edge (some form of energy weapon from the other Alternity perhaps) and looked around for the Nightsider's head which she had severed from its shoulders. She found it and picked it up by the hair.

Relena whimpered in fear, loathing and disgust at that particular sight. Nightheart looked over at the couch in curiosity and it was at that point that Hunter, Milliardo, Noin and Quatre rushed into the room calling frantically for Relena.

"I'm here!" Relena cried standing up. She was soon wrapped up in relieved hugs.

Nightheart tossed the head of the dead Nightsider casually to Hunter.

"Here, go bury that or something," the strange Nightsider (who _must_ have been the Executioner they'd sent for).

"Nightheart, people already think you're weird enough without you proving them right by tossing heads about like that," said Hunter, pained expression of long suffering on his face. "So just for the duration of our stay, could you _not_ go casually throwing around dead body parts please?"

Nightheart gave a small shrug. 

"Sure, whatever you say." She glanced over at Hunter Kylaran with a small smile. "What about live ones?"

Hunter saw the gun that Nightheart had crushed and picked it up.

"Hey Nightheart, look at this," he said holding up his prize. Nightheart looked over at him. "An old-fashioned slug-thrower. I saw one of these in a museum me mum and I went to once...of course, we were breaking into it at the time…"

"Slug?" she questioned, looking down at the bullet holes in her torso. "They look nothing like slugs, more like painful bits of metal."

Hunter looked over at her, standing there casually, bleeding.

"Nightheart, you really should let Doctor Ishora have a look at you."

"Why?" she asked, smirking as the bullets one by one fell out of her chest wounds and the flesh started knitting itself back together.

"Show off," Hunter muttered. 

Nightheart ignored him and turned instead to Heero, growling in annoyance.

"Friendly fire isn't!"

Heero nodded once. Acknowledged.

His Alternaty was being over-run by predators from another dimension, and now he had to deal with an arrogant bounty-hunter and her-too-cheerful-to-be-real partner. As if his life wasn't already complicated enough just dealing with the strange stirrings that Relena caused within him (which she seemed to be perfectly oblivious to). He'd heard of set a thief to catch a thief, but he wasn't so sure about this Executioner… Sure, she killed the Nightsider Assassin sent to kill Relena, but how could he be sure that she wouldn't just decide to cut her losses and join up with the other Nightsiders in this Alternity?

I don't trust her, he thought looking at the slight form of the Executioner. She should be monitored. I'll have to send a watcher after her on her next mission to make sure about her. He knew precisely the right person, perhaps the only person besides himself he'd trust for a job like this.

But in the meantime, he had a princess to protect.

End Chapter 4

* * *

Disclaimers: See Chapter 2


	5. The Hunt Begins

The odd gathering in the fire place lit and persian rug becarpeted study of Quatre Raberba Winner would have had the definite feeling of War Council if it weren't for the teacups. Heero stood sentinel-like by the door while the others met and drank tea while discussing the Nightsider attacks.

"Would you like some more tea Mister Hunter?" asked Quatre politely.

"Oh no thanks mate and just call me Hunter," said Hunter genially. "I'm still working on this cup. You know, I haven't had a cup of tea like this since me mum died."

"Oh, thank you," said Quatre, warmed by the compliment. "It's my own special blend."

"I really hate to interrupt your tea party here gentlemen," said Noin wryly. "But if we could concentrate on the matter at hand?"

"Of course miss Noin," said Quatre apologetically "I'm sorry."

"No need for apologies Quatre," Noin assured him. 

"Hey Nightheart," called Hunter over to the shadowed part of the room where she seemed to be inspecting one of the tapestries on the walls. "Why don't you come and join the discussion?"

"I don't need to be here," she said curtly. "I should be out hunting the rest of the Nightsiders so I can end their threat and return to our original alternity.  My responsibilities there still require my presence."

"Which brings up one of the points I wanted to mention," said Milliardo quietly. "While you're out there chasing down the rest of these guys, what happens to Relena? I mean if you aren't there to guard her and these people are as powerful as you've told us, we can't just drive her around in a tank… How are you doing the job we've hired you for?"

"I have prepared for this eventuality; the problem of trying to fulfill two assignments at the same time, and I have devised a solution. For those times that I cannot be present physically to guard the girl I will still be present in another way. Even if a Nightsider should get through to her through your own protections and through Hunters watch, I will be able to protect her still. And when I give my word to protect someone, they stay safe. However, this protection does require some trust on her part."

"What do you mean?" asked Relena and Milliardo in unison. 

"In order to grant you protection in my absence, I will have to…alter you," the Executioner said to Relena.

Relena frowned in puzzlement. Alter?

"Could you please come into the light while you explain," said Relena. "I don't like discussing serious matters such as this when I can't see the person I'm talking to."

"Wise of you," there seemed to be almost grudging approval in the voice of the woman. "Very well."

Without warning the empty space on the right arm of Relena's chair was filled with a presence. Relena looked up at the person who bore the ominous title Executioner. To her surprise the person was not overly tall, in fact she was downright petite. She looked about twenty-three, maybe a little younger (not much older than Relena herself). Nightheart had bronze-gold skin. Her eyes were dark chips of obsidian, her gaze was sharp, piercing, arctic yet filled with a…a terrible knowledge. Her facial expression was reserved, an imperturbable mask that revealed none of the thoughts of the person behind it; the little she was allowed to see told Relena that, if forced, this lady would do whatever it took to fulfill her obligations. A soul of Honor, a soul of a warrior. . Her hair was dark ebony black and glossy like a raven's wing, braided and coiled neatly out of her way but for one single lone thin braid hanging down from just behind her right ear. Relena noted the small braid that hung down just past her breast mainly because it ended in a carved and polished shiny black stone  that swung like a pendulum every time she moved her head or body. Relena couldn't tell if the stone was mere decoration or something more meaningful.

 The Executioner was thin and willowy, and whip-cord tough with wiry-hard muscles that spoke of a warriors life. She reminded Relena of nothing so much than a large jungle cat at the moment, relaxed with claws sheathed…but ready to fly into an attack with bared fangs and deadly sharp claws the very second the need arrived. She moved with cat-like grace and silence and when lounging in a "relaxed pose" her weight was still perfectly balanced so that she could go flying in any direction in a split second. That spoke louder than words of her formidability. The final thing that Relena noted was a twin set of blades slung across her back. She could see the tops of the blades because the scabbards were half-scabbards for a quick and easy cross draw. The blades themselves weren't metal at all! Instead they were… well they looked clear! Relena couldn't begin to fathom what they might be made out of; some strange material from the other reality she imagined. The weapons had apparently seen some hard usage and Nightheart acted as if they were part of her. It just seemed unusual to see someone carrying around a bladed weapon. 

Or perhaps it's not so unusual, Relena mused. She had witnessed earlier with that…head chopping thing, that Nightheart used the blade in her job.

"So what do you mean change me?" Relena asked, stifling her musings. "Change me how? You mean make me…like you?"

There was a wry twist of her lips, it wasn't much, but it said that this "Executioner" at least had a sense of humor.

"No. That is not a fate that I would wish on my own worst enemies…well, maybe on a few of them, but I believe they would enjoy it too much." The twist widened into a sardonic look. Relena smiled tentatively back.

"So what do you intend then?" asked Relena.

"There is a new skill out among the Nightsiders called Channeling. Mostly it is done with other Nightsiders, but on occasion if a willing Normal is found then they can be used in this manner as well. I say used because when you strip the finery and propaganda away, that is essentially what I will be doing. I will tell this to you directly because I do not believe you of all people should be kept in ignorance-" and here she leveled a sharp gaze at Heero who met her stare and scowled at her. Dismissed him as insignificant with a glance and turned back to Relena. 

"What I will do will not cause you to become like me, instead it allows me to…aid you when a Nightsider attacks and attempts to use his powers on you. When one of them tries to draw the life energies from your body, or even lays a finger on you for that matter, I will be able to use your body as a vessel for my own powers, using you to draw out their own energy or use my own powers to attack them. So, if they attempt to kill you then I will be able to get to them."

"That sounds like a winning solution to me…it won't hurt will it?"

"You will see all I see inside of them when I use my abilities, I promise you that I will never perform an Execution while I am using you as a vessel. No Normal should have to know what it's like." 

"She can be killed in other ways," Quatre pointed out. "What if one of them attacks from a distance?"

"That's what Hunter is here for," said Nightheart. 

She looked around her at the room at large. "As for the rest of you, I have some ground rules."

"Such as?" inquired Heero, not really sounding like he cared. 

"Rule number one… You do not go after the Nightsiders. I will be the only one allowed to Hunt them, all the rest of you Normals stay out of the way. If you see a Nightsider contact me and get out of there. Let. Me. Handle it. Got it? Rule Number two, You do not go after the Nightsiders. I can't stress it enough, just stay out of their way and mine. I don't want any of you getting killed trying to prove your level of testosterone poisoning. Other than that, do whatever you like, just don't get in my way."

"Nightheart, I thought we talked about this," Hunter said through narrowed eyes. "Your skills at diplomacy suck. You could stand to try making yourself a little more welcoming towards strangers instead of riding roughshod over everyone. Aside of that there is one more thing. I don't like you going out alone in a strage place like this one. I'm your partner, I should be at your side helping you."

"We did talk about this Hunter. You can help me best by staying here, out of harms way, and taking care of the little princess here. I need someone I can trust making sure that this half of my obligations is properly fulfilled."

"In case you hadn't noticed, the Princess isn't precisely unprotected," pointed out Hunter. He gestured to the figures in the room about him. "And from what I've heard this is about half of the team assigned to her."

"But none of her protectors are familiar with Nightsiders or their powers and tactics. Besides, they have what did you call them? 'slug throwers?' Hardly the kind of weapons that are going to strike fear into the hearts of Nightsider-kine. She'll be glad to have you there."

"Umm, could you two stop talking about me as if I wasn't in the same room with you?" Relena said, a little miffed.

"Ah, of course," said Nightheart. "I must perform the procedure now, because I need to start on my Hunts soon."

"Is this going to hurt?" asked Relena as Nightheart stepped in front of her.

"No. Now hold still."

Nightheart closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating and gathering her power within her, it came at her call, a familiar upwelling, a bubbling effervescence of vital energy. She then _pushed_ that energy at Relena, flowing into her mind and body, carving out a psychic niche, a pathway to flow through when the time came. The others in the room were aware of something out of the ordinary occurring only by the odd starry, misty glow shot through with swirls of rainbow hues surrounding the two if them as she worked. 

In a matter of moments Nightheart stepped away.

-_Should you ever need to contact me, simply reach in like this…_- Nightheart told her, and then demonstrated a peculiar mental twist…a tug on the new trail that was almost, but not quite, like a tiny thread connecting the two of them. –_and Call on me. I will answer and aid you.-_

"How are you doing that?" asked Relena, her head was still spinning from the odd feeling of Nightheart doing something…odd with the three areas on her. One was in the center of her brow, right where the third eye would be, another, in the center of her chest, three inches below her sternum, and the last at her navel, but somewhere directly in between her belly and her back. 

"Doing what? The binding of your Contact Points or the telepathy thing?" inquired Nightheart. 

"Um, both actually," said relena, still a little disoriented at hearing a voice inside her mind. It wasn't precisely unpleasant, merely unusual. Nightheart had a pleasant mental voice, it reminded Relena of quiet ponds or secluded forests. Of all places that held secrets hidden in their depths.

"Well, the second is easier to explain. Bonding with the Symbiont has made me telepathic. In our Alternaty, telepaths are not unusual, they are uncommon, but not so rare as to be considered freakish. Once long ago that was not the case…but that's all old history. Don't fear that I will go searching through your thoughts. Not only would that be rude in the highest sense, but I have no curiosity to know any of your inner secrets, I have my own after all."

"Oh, well that's good," said Relena, mentally reeling once more. A real true telepath? Now she'd seen everything! "And the second, what's a Contact Point?"

"Well, it's hard to explain. It would be easier if you had some background in the workings of Chi or _qi_," Said Nightheart. "I don't suppose you know about that do you?" 

At a shake of Relena's head Nightheart looked disappointed. 

"Actually, Hunter could explain it better than I can, he's studied martial arts in many of the Eastern styles," said Nightheart. "I have to get out there and start on my Mandates. Expect me when you see me."

And with that Nightheart just, disappeared into the shadows.

"I'm really starting to hate it when she does that," Milliardo remarked to the room at large. He turned to her partner. "So, what did that girl do to my kid sister?"

"Well, according to ancient chinese medicine, the body is run by the flow of energy throughout its meridians. The vital essence or life force is called Chi or _Qi_ by the chinese. And also according to that belief there are a three different kinds of Chi, I forget their names just now but the gist of it is, there is an amount of energy that is granted us all at our births that comes from the Chi of both parents imparted to the child. According to the other Nightsiders, or so Nightheart tells me, it is this energy that is the most powerful and most sought after. The second kind of Chi is generated by our bodies every day from the consumption of food and drink and breath. This is used constantly, but also renewed constantly. There is a third kind, but I don't really recall what it is or does. Anyway, Chi is said to travel through out the body in spiraling pathways called meridians. Nightheart has told me that this much is true. And that Chi gathers in three main locations called Dan'Tien. The Nightsiders call these Contact Points and use them to access the meridians of chi throughout their victims bodies taking their energies and sucking them into themselves."

"Wufei has mentioned some things about Chi," said Relena. "I thought it was merely old Chinese folklore."

"No, they were quite correct in their assumptions," Hunter said. "What Nightheart basically did to you was to take the Dan'Tien in your body and bind them to her own energies. No other Nightsider will be able to touch you without her knowing about it. But, don't you worry, I personally have no intention of letting them even get that close."

While Hunter kept the people in the room occupied with his explanation of chi and contact points and channels, Heero slipped out to go find Trowa. He had a small favor to ask. Heero himself couldn't leave Relena's side to follow the Nightsider Executioner and verify anything about her, so the next best person he could think of was Trowa. True, Duo's specialty was sneaking around and going undetected…but he was worried sick over Hilde. Heero almost came up short, that was odd, normally he wouldn't have thought of it. Relena must be rubbing off on him.

He knocked once on the door to Trowa's room and waited for permission to enter. Even Heero wouldn't care to test his skills against the tall ex-pilot. He was not entirely sure he'd win, besides…why anger a useful ally?

"Come in," said the voice from beyond the door. Heero entered, to find trowa in the midst of dismantling one of his guns, however there was a second in his hand, trained on the doorway. Once Trowa had visual confirmation that the person on the other side of his door was not an enemy, the gun disappeared.

"Trowa." Heero nodded in greeting.

"Heero." Trowa returned the greeting.

"I would like you to follow this Executioner," said Heero without preamble. "I require information about her."

"Such as?" asked Trowa with an inquiring eyebrow, not looking up from where he sat cleaning his gun.

"Is she as powerful and as capable as they say. Is she trustworthy. What are her motives. How does she operate," he outlined without inflection. "And anything else you might notice about her."

"I take it you are asking me because you won't be going yourself?"

"Correct."

"Done, but you owe me," said the ex-mercenary, reassembling his gun and loading the clip with a soft snap. He rose and exited the house without a sound. Heero nodded to himself, satisfied that in a short time he would have all of the information he required to rest a little easier while protecting Relena…er, the Vice Foreign Minister.

* * *

Trowa spotted the fleeting shadowy form of Executioner Nightheart making her way past the lawns of Quatre's estate from his rooftop perch. He nimbly leapt to the ground, landing without a single noise and watched her from the shadows for a moment. She did not appear to be aware of his prescence…perhaps she was being careless. If so, that was one point against her. Trowa silently followed her at a safe distance, using the shadows in the darkness to hide his form. When she was away from the house Nightheaert took bent over her arm as if she were checking her watch and pressed some kind of panel on her wrist guard. A small holo-screen hovered in the air above her wrist, she pressed a few more buttons and some words and images scrolled across it. A file of some kind, was all Trowa could make out. The part of him that was not involved in anylyzing her every movement and trying to read her lips in the darkness, was thinking that he wanted that wrist guard, it was a very cool looking piece of technology. They hadn't anything like it here in this world. Nightheart frowned once, and headed toward Preventer HQ.

*

Nightheart heard the very soft, very subtle scrape of boot against pavement several feet away from her and made a mental note to herself to keep an ear out for further signs of being followed. Her would-be tail was upwind from her, and by heightening her sense of smell she could just faintly catch a whiff of his scent. She logged that away for future referencing. It didn't have the tang of a Nightsider, so whatever it was would simply have to wait. 

I should get back to that room with all of the Nightsider Kills in it, so I can pick up the trail before it gets too cold, she thought. She shot off in the direction of the Headquarters in what for her was a ground covering lope. That was one nice thing about being a Nightsider, increased stamina. She could run long distances and not be out of breath. Still, in her opinion, the benefits in no way outweighed the costs.

Arriving at the headquarters, Nightheart noted that her tail was still with her…this person was in good shape then. They'd kept up with her, and if she hadn't been a Nightsider she still wouldn't know he or she was there. Breifly, she wondered how the person did it. Even if they were a potential enemy, she had to give them her respect for keeping up with her while not blowing their cover. That spoke of skill, she respected skill. But her trailer's agenda would have to wait until she had finished her Assignment. 

Nightheart relied on the mental map of the place she had made earlier to giude her to the room she sought. There was a guard at the door, but she showed him her badge and he let her through. Obviously the efficient Lady Une had instructed the guards to do so. 

The enegy signatures are growing fainter, she thought as she felt the faint lingering traces with her hands… She could sometimes get enough of a fix on an energy trail that she could follow it with her mind in a sort of Astral Projection and either see the Nightsiders next victim after the body she hovered over or see the Nightsider itself if he had killed no one since.

Suddenly Nightheart got that weird death-chill. One of the Nightsiders who had drained one of the Victims in this room had just drained another Innocent. 

…And another. And now a third. 

Nighthearts face and heart hardened in anger and helpless fury over the lives she was not able to save. She counted, one by one, the dying Innocents reverberating in the trail of the Nightsider. He was going on a Feast. 

Nightheart locked onto the Target's energy trail and flew out of the room, determined to try to stop the Nightsider before her could take any more lives, but still the Death-Chills kept coming. As she neared the focus of all those Death Chills, they suddenly stopped. 

Ancient Gods of my Honored Ancestors she thought, cursing her own stupidity. He must have sensed my anger as I neared and ran for safety. Well, no matter, at least he has stopped and I will have enough of a recent trail to track him down easily. 

She opened up a communications channel to Hunter back at "the base" and said

"Hunter?" After all he might not be at the com-stat right at the moment. 

"I'm here Nightheart," he said into her earpiece a moment later. 

"I'm currently pursuing Target 0423," she told him. "Can you call up the file on him?"

"It's here," he said. "Target 0423, Alejandro Montoya. Alias-Codename: Bane. Level: Fourth Circle. Specialties: Telepathic Disguise, Charm-Compel, and something they call the Dragonsbreath." Hunter reported.

"I hate that power, by the end of the Hunt my uniform always ends up singed," Nightheart muttered. She turned her head slightly at the sound of booted feet running a "safe distance" behind her. So her tail was still there was he? Tenacious little bastard, she had to give him points for that. However, since he was a Normal, and she had sworn herself to the protection of his kind, here was the end of his ride.

Nightheard stepped into the shadows suddenly, to the casual observer it looked like she'd just walked into a fold in thin air. From there she used her powers to leap up onto a third-story rooftop in a single jump and watched her trailer as her looked about for her. Nightheart vaulted to another rooftop without so much as a whisper of movement. Actually, if she'd wanted to, she could have made all the noise she wanted and simply blocked it all out with a smothering blanket of silence…but that would have been lazy and sloppy. She looked down at her erstwhile follower. Measuring him up. It was definitely a man, she could tell that much by his scent alone. He was tall, and thin, Nightheart saw the muscles and the way he moved and immediately guessed that he'd seen his share of fighting. She watched as he flipped up over a fence and walked along top of the thin rail. 

Impressive, he looks like those strange Outworlders that travel about doing shows of agility. What does Hunter call them? Acrobutts? Nightheart shook herself out of her reverie. Time to end this. She landed without an audible sound on the hard pavement below and quietly got just within range of him.

Nightheart froze him in place with a judicious use of her power. It wouldn't do to go wasting Energies, she never knew if she was going to need them. Fourth Circle was a little higher and hence usually a little more crafty and a little more clever than Sixth Circle and below. But a paralysis working was something small, relatively easy (provided you knew what you were doing) and effective. 

Sure enough, he was frozen in place, unable to move. A Nightsider would have been able to block it, or deflect it or (if they were strong enough) reverse it. Not so the Normal before her.

"I'm on a rather stilted timetable so I want you to make this quick for me," said Nightheart. "Don't bother lying, I'll know if you do. And if you try I'll just forget about being polite and pull the answers I want directly out of your mind. Understand?"

The person didn't respond.

"Oh, right," she said. Nightheart's shirai with it's molecule-cutting sharp energy-blade manifested itself and she placed it gently against his throat, then released the paralysis hold on him. Wisely, he didn't move.

"Who sent you and why have you been following me?" she demanded. She could understand if she were in her native Alternity, lots of people over there wanted her dead. But no one knew her here in this world, and the Normal before her did not have the taint of a Nightsider Compel on him nor did he have the feel of being one of their Servants.

"I was sent by one of your allies to make sure about you," he replied quietly. "I'm called Trowa Barton."

"Trowa, huh? Is that your name?"

"It may as well be."

"Okay, Trowa Barton…You're going back home right now. I can't have you underfoot and getting in my way when I go after Bane. It's too risky for you."

"I've been a soldier on the battle field for as long as I can remember," he told her, his face completely devoid of expression. "Danger is never a problem. All those who seek to live their lives protecting what they love automatically accept the risks."

Nightheart considered the person before her, weighing the risks. On any normal mission she would have slapped a Compel on him and sent him packing back to base, but this was not a normal mission and perhaps her rules should be bent on this occasion. He'd kept up with her so far, he was a soldier, and he had been sent by the others to be sure about her. She knew that a lot of people had trouble believing what they had not seen with their own eyes. She would allow him to see her in action and let him take back confirmation of her skill and ability to the one or ones who doubted. She'd just have to make sure he stayed out of her way. No one, not even Hunter, was allowed near the scene of a battle between herself and a Nightsider once the Nightsider had been cornered.

"You've been following me since I left the house," she said. "I've been aware of your presence. If you wish to see for yourself what it is that I do, I will permit your company, but only this once. Then you will return to your friends after I have tracked down and Executed this Nightsider. You will tell them of what you see."

Trowa nodded once.

"It is rare indeed that anyone has ever caught me at trailing them," he said quietly. "You _must_ have heightened abilities." He smiled a small smile and fell into step behind Nightheart, who had slowed her pace a trifle in order for him to keep up better.

Even if Bane has fled the scene, if I can reach those victims of his in time I might have a strong enough thread of his energy trail that I can work through it to slow him down just enough for me to catch up. Hopefully I can do it before he attacks again, she thought as she ran through the darkened streets. The night air filled her lungs and made her feel a little more alive. Even though she detested cities and a disgusting invention of the Outworlders. Trying to cut themselves off from the natural world in an effort to make themselves masters of everything, satisfying their strange taste for unnatural things…she'd never understand Outworlders. They were insatiably curious, unconcionably rude and never seemed to mind their own business.

Nightheart sent a thread of energy out to the Outworlder following along behind her, boosting his own reserves and nearly failing muscles. He would surely have bad muscle cramps before the night was out, she would have to remember to work a Healing on him before he went to bed, or else he would not be able to move in the morning. Soldier or not, there was only so much punishment a body could take.

-_We're almost to the place where all of his most recent victims are lying,-_ she Sent to him. One look at his face almost made her loose her composure and chuckle. He looked like he'd been smacked in the back of the head with a board. –_Yes, that is my voice you are hearing in your mind…from now on silent communication is best. Just in case Bane has stuck around to see what I will do next I don't want to do anything that will give away our position._-

"Telepathy?" he murmured. "I thought it was only a myth."

-_No. Now please, silence is best from here on in. When I go to Execute Bane, you will not be accompanying me on the final part of this Hunt. You are going to hang back at a safe distance and observe from the sidelines. If I catch you trying to interfere, by the time I get through with you, you will wish your ancestors had never borne you. Do you understand_?-

"Understood." Trowa nodded once. One did not contradict a commanding officer when they knew what they were about. This was effectively Nightheart's command, and her expertise would rule out in this instance. Trowa would obey her instructions to the letter.

Nightheart nodded in satisfaction. She would face Bane alone, of that she was sure.

Suddenly she stopped, drawn by the feel of a recent Nightsider Kill. It was like a prickling on the back of her neck and a tug at her skin; an all over body shudder and a chill up her spine. It was all of those things and more. She could sense the recent parting, the faint almost-scent of Bane's Nightsider Power in the air. He had been here recently and whether he was still here remained to be seen.

I wonder where "here" is, she thought. She tapped the Holo-Map on her wrist unit and the familiar square of light sprung before her face. The map had her location labeled as the West End. Looking around her, she could already tell that the West End wasn't the best end of town. The buildings were either crumbling or dilapidated from sheer age, and the ones that weren't either of those looked like they'd been blasted away. The smell of garbage and urine clung to the air making Nightheart glad that she'd turned off her heightened sense of smell a while ago. People who were obviously homeless and indigent shambled along, their shaggy heads bent and their hopeless eyes to the ground. She knew they weren't actually going anywhere, for they had no where to go. They were probably only moving because they felt it was better than standing still. Some of them talked to themselves in a barely audible murmur…one old man sat in the burned out ruins of a building and shouted about a war. She could see the loss of hopes and dreams in the eyes of some of the ones who me her gaze. Well, the ones that weren't half crazy or drugged up, that was. She saw them just shuffle along, counting out the minutes and hours until they could get out of their rut by way of the Final Solution. As a testament to the sheer penury of the neighborhood, there were no hookers in evidence. The place was so poor that no one who hung out around the place had the money to buy one, so they all plied their trade elsewhere. 

Typical choice for a lone Nightsider Assassin looking to get some energies quickly. Go after the people who won't be missed, the drifters, the cast-offs, the forgotten she thought bitterly. Not so long ago she had been one of them, or something akin to it. The People killed and she the sole survivor, she'd had no where to go but into the unfamiliar Outworlds. She'd been a stranger in a strange land, with no knowledge of how to speak their language or how their strange world worked. She'd had to steal food. 

Then she'd met Hunter and his mother. Bounty Hunters, who knew about the strange customs and languages of the Outworlds. They'd taught her to survive in their world. Hunter had been the first Outworlder she ever met who seemed to care about what happened to her.

Trowa was beside her, panting for breath.

Nightheart glanced sideways at him, she'd was feeling a little bit winded too after that mad dash from one end of town to the other.

-_We're almost there. Then you can rest while I check on a few things._-

Nightheart closed her eyes and turned in the direction that the pull was strongest. The recent Kills were nearby.

Many Nightsiders or even the few Sect-Masters there were, preferred to make their lairs in such surroundings. The people there tended not to ask questions, and the ones who did could be either bought or silenced for the same amount of effort on the Nightsiders behalf. The perfect place for a hide away where you wanted no one knowing your name or face.

"What kind of things would you want to know about in a place like this?" Trowa asked, looking around him. Even he would be wary about entering this kind of territory armed or not. It was true that most of the people residing in there wouldn't bother to look up at his face, being so lost in their own worlds (most of them drug-induced), but the ones who did would mark him to hit later.

-_Don't worry_,- Nightheart assured him. _–You are under my protection. Nothing will happen to you here while I am around…and there they are. You may not wish to see this.-_ Nightheart knew very well what she would find, however her familiarity with it never made that first sight of the piles of bodies any easier.

For the most part, Nightsiders were cautious in their Feedings. Unless one went into a Hunger-Frenzy or invited a few of his friends over to the slums for a Feast, they kept their activities low key. They usually picked out a single victim and attacked, or chose a person at random with a low level of personal willpower and overwhelmed them (just like in the classic vampire stories). However, when one did go on a Feast they threw caution to the winds, counting on the fact that once they were done their final accumulation of power would be so great that they wouldn't be messed with. Generally, with the exception of Nightheart and the Guardians, they were right. The bodies piled five or six high were simply dragged out of the slums, and the cause of them explained away by the media and the government as an outbreak of some disease or other, then all information was usually classified by the Institute.

"I don't think it's anything I haven't seen before," he told her seriously.

Nightheart shrugged. It was his decision for the time being.

Waves of death hit her like hammers to the skull. The taint of a Nightsider kill was overpowering in its intensity. Bane was living up to his name.

Ancestors Blood! Nightheart swore to herself. As usual, the feeling of helplessness and rage built up inside of her. She'd been too late to save them. Nevermind that there was no way she could have made it from there to here in time, she had still been somewhere else when all of these people had had their lives torn from them. 

"I think I see one of the failings in your system now," said Trowa calmly. Nightheart looked over at him. "In order for you to catch a Nightsider and have him "Executed" they must first kill a victim. You can track them through the bodies of their victims, but first there must be a body."

"Yes," said Nightheart. Her voice sounded oddly raw. "That is one of the major problems with this. It is an inefficient system, but nonetheless it is the only one we have. A Nightsider must first commit a crime, otherwise if the News-Media ever got a hold of the story they would immediately shout witch-hunt. Also it is near impossible for a Normal to track down a Nightsider who is unwilling to be found. I need a body to get a lock on their…scent so that I can track them down. It is, what is the term Hunter uses? Catch twenty-two."

Trowa nods, accepting the necessity of it. It was much the same way in war.

Nightheart looked about her at the bodies. The pull of Bane's signature energy trail would not be at all difficult to follow now. I'm sorry, she thought helplessly at the bodies. I wasn't here when you needed me to be. 

It was times such as these when Nightheart cursed the necessity of the victim in a Nightsider case, cursed her own inadequacy at not being able to be everywhere at once, cursed them, cursed herself and cursed the harsh reality of their condition. It wasn't fair! 

The world isn't fair, she reminded herself. No one ever told you it was. The only kind of justice that exists in the universe is poetic justice, and that's usually more ironic than anything else. The only thing I can do for these people, and the Nightsider victims in the future, is try to avenge their deaths by hunting down their killers and Executing them. 

But the really terrible part about the entire scenario…the part that just made her sick to her stomach some nights, was that in their own way, the Nightsiders (including herself) were as much victims as the people they preyed upon. They hadn't asked to be snatched off the street and used in experiments by the Institute. They hadn't asked to be mind-wiped and stripped of their personalities. They didn't ask to be made into hunters. And she'd never asked to be bonded with a Symbiont. 

Sometimes, it makes me ill when I think about it, she thought. So for now, she didn't think, she concentrated on finding her Target.

Unusually enough, the energy trail was easy to read. Bane had gone to no trouble to hide his energy signature as he'd escaped, and that fact alone made her wary. He was close by, she could sense it. His scent lingered in the air. 

-_Come on, Outworlder,-_ she sent. –_The one I seek is nearby. If you wish to see what it is that I do follow me. But when I tell you to stay in one position, you will maintain that place until I come for you._-

"I understand," he said.

Nightheart picked her way nimbly among the rubble and dead bodies. Carnage, that was her world now. Carnage and death. Nightheart looked over at the Outworlder tagging along beside her, he seemed undisturbed by the scene before him. Given his age, Nightheart would have expected him to be gagging at the sight of all those dead bodies piled on top of one another, but her just surveyed the scene with an almost casual emotionless-ness. Nightheart would have been dismayed to discover a mirroring expression on her face if she hadn't known that emotions meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant death in her occupation.

I suppose there was a time long ago when all of this would have bothered me, she thought to herself as she followed the ever-increasing pull of the Nightsiders' Death Trail. But I've seen so much and been through so much, that I guess it has all numbed me. Someday, when I rebuild my homeland and re-found my Clan, there will be a time for me to grieve and to feel once more…but today is not that day. I have a mandate to fulfill right now, anything else is a distraction. Bane…I will terminate you.

Nightheart switched to that other sight that allowed her to read the auras and energy signatures of others. She could see Bane's Death Trail hovering like glowing, flowing fog in the air. Moving and shifting like a mirage, it reminded Nightheart of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights of the far north…that was precisely what it looked like. Like cloudy fire hanging in the air.

"Stay here," she directed, pointing to part of a wall that was still standing when the rest of it had crumbled from the force of a blast in some long ago battle. A good defensible position, the soldier in him saw that. Trowa crouched behind the wall and brought out his binoculars with night-scope on them. Nightheart nodded.

She walked slowly and purposefully towards the nexus of Death Energies she sensed in the blast site nearby. He awaited her there.

"Nightheart the Executioner," a voice said out of the shadows. It seemed to come from everywhere and no where at once. It had the resonant quality that characterized a Nightsider trying to intimidate someone. Nightheart had seen this trick only about a thousand times and remained unimpressed. 

"So you've come at last. I'm honored," he said, his voice dripped with facetious sarcasm.

"I am here to fill out a Mandate for your execution, Bane," said Nightheart without preamble. "I have been assigned and authorized by the Alliance to terminate your existence for the crimes that you have perpetuated."

"Your strength is legendary among our kine Executioner. They say your powers and abilities are matched only by Nightlord Thanatos himself. I've greatly increased my own accumulation in my Power Reservoir. I think I am a match in power even to our own Nightlord, and I think I'm even strong enough to beat you. Let's find out, shall we?"

"I'm not here to compete with you. I've come to kill you. But if you wish to play war games, be prepared to die this night."

End Chapter 5

* * *

Disclaimers: see chapter2


	6. WHo's on First and What's on Second no c...

Hunter looked over at the place where his compatriot Nightheart had been only moments ago. It figured that she would choose to run off like that. She was always doing that disappearing act, it had nearly driven Hunter to distraction at one point early on in their association. But then, if Nightheart always disappeared when she felt superfluous she always reappeared when she was most needed.

"Come, Mister Hunter," said the young blonde, kindly looking individual. "Meet the others of our party."

If Hunter remembered correctly, the young man's name was Catra. He reminded Hunter of a sweet little cherub, all innoscence and light. Hunter sternly reminded himself that appearances could be deceiving, no one was ever exactly as they appeared. The whole kindness-and-sugar act could be just that, an act. Hunter had no idea what this person was really like. But despite his suspicions, something in him really wanted to like the guy.

He could be an Empath, Hunter thought after a moments consideration as he followed behind his cherubic-looking guide. He could be influencing my thoughts to make me want to like and trust him.

Projective Empaths were rare, but not unheard of in Hunters world. They were usually carefully monitored for breeding purposes by the Committee. Like Telepaths, they had to be carefully trained in their abilities and a code of ethics before they could be introduced into society. An out-of-control Projective Empath loose in a crowd had been known to cause riots and chaos until they were sedated and brought to a Committee Training Center. 

Just to be certain that Projective Empathy was not what was causing Hunter to want to like the young blonde, Hunter checked his shields. Being the son of a Telepath had given Hunter some small latent telepathic abilities. He wasn't very strong, not like his mother had been, but he was smart in how he used his abilities. Hunter could block casual scans, and even deeper probes but it required a lot of concentration on his part. He could sense when someone around him was using their abilities sometimes, and he could, under great times of stress send out a mental call for help that could be heard by any nearby sensitive. But Hunter himself was not able to scan another persons thoughts or probe into their minds. His mother had been able to, but Hunter was deaf to the telepathic world. He considered himself lucky for that, he'd rather not wander around knowing what others were thinking all of the time.

No damage to my shields, but the lad is Projecting an aura of calm and well-meaning, thought Hunter. It has the feel of being an untrained ability. He probably doesn't even realize he's doing it, but he is a very strong sender. I think I should offer to teach him the basics before I leave, it could be dangerous to have that gift go untrained.

Hunter shook himself out of his thoughts. Speculation could wait.

"Here we are," Quatre said politely. He led Hunter into a room with people lounging about. Well, at least some of them were. The first ones he noticed were the ones he'd already met… Zechs, Noin and his charge Miss Relena. His eyes skipped over them to take the other people in the room. There was a dark-haired young woman with bright blue eyes laying on a couch covered with a blanket, near her there sat a young man with a braid that was probably as long as Nightheart's hair when it was down. 

"…heaven's sake Duo! It's only a little scratch, I've sustained worse in training under OZ, will you stop fussing already!" the girl on the couch was carping at the boy with the braid.

"…Just goes to show you that women should not be fighting. They'll only get themselves hurt." This from a young man with dark-bronze skin, cat-like oriental eyes and a tight pony tail. He was practicing a martial arts kata on a nearby rug. "And when are we going to get sent out again, I tire of waiting here like a defenseless woman or child when I could be out there doing something about these…Night creatures."

There was a woman sitting near him with gold-blonde hair in two efficient twists on one side of her head who was simultaneously going through a first aid kit and cleaning a gun.

"Oh Wufei, you're just sore because this new enemy of ours beat you in a dual," said the shapely blonde woman. Obviously she was military. "Well, you shouldn't feel that way. He beat everybody. And besides, you heard what that girl from the other world said…these Nightsiders can't be killed by normal means."

The one called Wufei only grunted.

The golden haired one exchanged a look with Noin and murmured

"I think someone had better give him something to do with all of this time on his hands or he's going to drive himself and us completely crazy."

This earned her a glare from the Chinaman. She did nothing but grin it off.

"Well, I'm kinda glad I don't have to go out hunting these things, whatever they are. I saw it pick up that marble table-top, and its ability to remotely disconnect a Gundam is a bit daunting, even for someone of my fighting expertise," said the one with the braid. "However, they must be from another world if they did not recognize the God of Death when they saw him."

"Oh get over yourself!" said the woman from the couch disparagingly.

"Wha-at?" asked the braided one, looking at her innocently. "You're not just as surprised as everyone else here that these nightpeople didn't run the other way at the sight of Shinigami?"

"No, I'm surprised they didn't run the other way when faced with the size of your ego, Duo," teased the dark-haired couch-dweller.

"If you two would please take your courtship games else where," said the chinaman looking over at them from his interrupted kata. "I cannot practice my kata when you two are disturbing my chi."

"Courtship games?!" said Duo. Hunter could tell by the way his eyes widened and how he immediately tried to deny it that the braided one had a soft spot for the one on the couch. Only a direct hit on the man's true feelings could create that exact kind of a reaction. As the two young men prepared to embroil themselves in a verbal sparring match, Hunter noted that Noin and Zechs exchanged a knowing glance. The kind of glance that said they knew all about what was going on with the young man with the braid and the dark-haired girl and their unrequited feelings for each other, and were amused by it all.

Hunter watched the one with the braid and the Chinese guy squabble for a few minutes like two fishwives over a loaf of fresh bread.

"…refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person." (This from the Chinese guy.)

"I'll show you unarmed!"

The braided one prepared to lunge at the Chinese fellow.

It was at that moment that Quatre sprang in between the two of them, aided by Relena (who was soothing the ruffled feathers of the chinaman) to break up the fight. Hunter understood why the two had been so quick to pick a fight. Nerves. Things were obviously pretty tense in this room, what with the just recent attack and the need to protect the Vice Foreign Minister. Plus added to that was the very up close and personal demonstration of the power of their new enemy and the fact that people were dying left and right, and naturally everyones nerves were a little high strung. Tempers were bound to be short, and among warriors a good way to get out stress was to pound away at each other.

However, Hunter couldn't see it making much of a difference in these circumstances, it wouldn't help Nightheart catch the Nightsiders she had Mandates for any faster.

"Everyone…" said Quatre, when things had been calmed down. "As some of you already know, this man standing next to me is named Hunter Kylaran. He came over along with Executioner Nightheart and one of their doctors, a Doctor Mian Ishora, to help us."

Quatre turned toward Hunter to introduce him to the other people in the room.

"Hunter, this is Heero Yuy, in case you two haven't been formally introduced."

"Hey mate," said Hunter, grinning at the dark look leveled at him by the brooding youth. 

The blonde then pointed to the dark-haired woman reclining in the sofa. 

"That's Hilde Schbieker, Preventor Spark as she's been code named. The one next to her is Duo Maxwell, he's been assigned to help with this mission."

"Hello, nice to meet you," said Hunter in a friendly way. Duo waved casually and gave him a friendly grin. Duo's prospective beloved however was slightly more than casually friendly. Hunter was accustomed to being admired by the opposite gender, but it never ceased to embarrass him or make him uncomfortable, he especially hated it when the guys the females liked looked at Hunter like it was his fault that their ladies eyes strayed to him.

"Oh it's _very_ nice to meet you," said Hilde obviously admiring his…assets. Hilde exchanged a glance with Relena that crossed culture boundaries. Hunter was certain, much to his inner dismay, that he would find himself the subject of closed-door female bedroom gossip later that night.

"This is Wufei Chang," Quatre continued on, oblivious to the by-play. So now Hunter knew the name of the Chinese man. Funny, in a way, he almost reminded Hunter of Nightheart, but Nightheart wasn't Chinese. Maybe it was the skin tone. It seemed more likely to be something in the way this Wufei carried himself, the proud, stubborn set to his chin and that look that said "warrior's pride."

"And this is Sally Po, Preventor Water," said Quatre indicating the blonde woman who was just finishing up reassembling her gun.

"Hello," she said absently, still finishing off the last of her checks on the first aid kit. It looked like a rather archaic affair of bandages and scissors, and small packets of burn creams. Where were the skin regenerators or the molecule scrubs? Where were the restorative sprays or the mineral creams? They didn't even have a small bio-gel pack or any bone-grows. This alternaty had a lot to learn about org-tech. Perhaps he should help speed the process along.

Wait a minute, part of him argued. There are many who would argue that by simply handing them this technology, I might be interfering with the growth of their people and civilization as a whole…

He paused and thought about the good that their medicinal technology could do and, if handled properly, the uses it could be put to. True, like any tool it could be used for both good and evil… but it could also cure a tremendous amount of illness and prevent many deaths in this world so..

…screw 'em.

"Hello Miss Po. Are you a doctor?"

"Yes I am," she said. "Why?"

"Well I was just thinking that you'd like to meet Doctor Ishora in her temporary med-fac. She could probably use all the help she can get. Nightheart tends to go pretty rough on her body when she's in full hunt-mode. Even with her increased healing abilities, her symbiont could use all the assistance it can get. I was thinking you two docs might like to compare notes. A lot of our practices and equipment are a little more…" Hunter searched for a polite way to say advanced without making it sound like he thought their own methods were practically neanderthalic. 

It was Wufei, however that seemed to be immediately delighted with the suggestion.

"An excellent notion!" he said, brightening up with a look that appeared positively pleased on his face. "You should take this opportunity to learn all you can from this new doctor, Sally."

"You're just saying that because you want to get me off the battlefield and out of harms way," she accused, looking wryly annoyed but well accustomed to his ways.

"Well, there is that added benefit now isn't there?" he said casually. 

"Wufei, I thought we talked about this. Will you kindly stop trying to protect me from everything. I'm a soldier, a doctor, and a full grown woman. I can take care of myself."

"Not half so well as I can," he maintained. "You shouldn't be fighting Sally, you'll get hurt, and then our teams effectiveness would be cut in half."

"I don't need to be coddled…" and Hunter tuned them out. He could sense that this was an argument worn thin with time. In fact, it was precisely the same argument he had worn thin with Nightheart. The poor doctor.

"Hey," said Quatre, looking around. "Has anyone seen Trowa?"

"He's out running an errand for me," said Heero, not moving from his position on the wall in the back of the room near Relena. Shoulders resting against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, head bent, he looked like he was resting, Hunter would be willing to bet that he wasn't resting, but was instead watching Hunter and everything else in the room with acute concentration of a hunting falcon.

Relena was busily ensconced in reading over some document or other with Milliardo looking over her shoulder discussing some obscure point in it with her. 

Heero, while he certainly didn't look like he was watching the girl, Hunter could see that he was watching the girl. Hunter recognized the veiled look in Heero's eyes, a sort of carefully hidden longing and an obstinate refusal. Hunter could also sense something between the young man and the lady he watched over. It wasn't a telepathic link, but it was some kind of bond…something deeper than mental contact. Hunter was uncertain about how he knew…only simply that it was there and he could feel it.

Heero and Relena were connected, bonded together somehow.

That's strange, thought Hunter, puzzled. I can sense it, but my latent telepathy is inactive. What's going on I wonder?

He shrugged it off, for the moment. It was none of his business, not yet anyway. 

* * *

Trowa watched from his perch behind the blasted out wall as their new Executioner faced off with the strange Nightsider. If she defeated this one, that would be two kills within a single night. Trowa recalled the confrontation with the Nightsider over at Cerrid Velsinks estate. Facing down just one of them had taken all five of the Gundam Pilots and seventeen other Preventors, plus Wing Gundam, and they still hadn't brought down the Nightsider.

Neither Trowa nor Quatre had believed President Takahashi in the other Alternaty when he'd told them all just how dangeroud and ruthless those Nightsider Assassing could be. That first battle against the one called "Havoc" had made a believer out of him.

Still, thought Trowa looking at the strange "Executioner" dubiously. I don't know if she's really strong enough to beat this guy. Trowa looked over at the piles of dead bodies…some of the corpses were very tough-looking men, men who made their livings as "enforcers" of mobsters and gang members, men who offed people for a living. This Nightheart looked too small to do anything. Trowa hadn't witnessed the previous battle between Executioner Nightheart and the Nightsider Assassin called Havoc, maybe it was merely a coincidence.

She certainly doesn't look like much, he thought. She was actually pretty short, not much above five feet, and very slight. The Nightsider facing off with her was a good two heads taller than she and built like a bulldozer. 

"Time to meet your doom," Bane called to the Executioner.

"'Time to meet your doom'?" she mimicked, her voice laced with disbelief. "Can't you do any better than that?!"

"How's this!… Volt-Screeeaaam!!" he yelled and unleashed a blinding flash of green-white energy outward from his cupped hands, along with the energy came a horrible banshee-like wail crashing through the air. Bane was glowing with a visible aura of power.

Nightheart said nothing, but was crouched in defensive stance, apparently waiting for the blast to hit her. As the blast came crashing towards her like a tsunami of greenish power, she moved suddenly, dodging to one side out of its way. In return she burst out two tiny balls of blue-white power. Those landed on target, hitting Bane in the side. They were followed by several more as Bane wound up for another spell.

"Power-Blaaast!" he yelled hitting his opened hand to the ground at his feet. A crack in the land shot towards her and the area beneath her feet glowed for a moment..

Nightheart was silent, waiting, coiled like a snake ready to strike. As the sphere of mottled green Power prepared to unleash itself around her she tried to spring out of its way again. Too late. It exploded sending rocks and debris everywhere and blasting Nightheart up into the air. She tumbled end over end with the force of the blast but as she came down she twisted into the air and blasted downward towards the ground. Her descent slowed and she landed lightly onto her feet.

What is she doing? thought Trowa. He thought back to what he knew about Nightsiders. They required life energy to live, but these same life energies were also what fueled their Powers. The more powerful the attack thrown, the more energies it took to fuel them.

I see! thought Trowa. The Executioner is waiting for Bane to use up some of his incredible accumulated strength, before she tries to destroy him. A good plan of attack, but he's bound to figure it out sooner or later, unless he's so focused on his goal that he keeps blasting at her regardless of how much power he's using.

* * * 

Heero looked over at the new comer from the other Alternaty, still keeping Relena in his peripheral vision. He had an open sort of face, but he did not like in the least the way he seemed to have immediately attracted the attentions of Relena.

It's none of my business who she dates, he reminded himself sternly. I'm only here to help protect her life until the current crisis is over with.

But still, she was smiling at this Hunter Kylaran. She'd known him barely a few hours and they were already talking like old friends, she even laughed at his jokes! She was just too trusting, that was her problem. While it might be true that Hunter was supposed to be on the side of Truth, Justice and Apple Pie, there were corrupt cops and venial priests no matter what society one belonged to. This Hunter could be trying to charm her…and what about his partner, who openly admitted that she was one of those Nightsider creatures? She might suddenly decide to switch sides and there would be no way to stop her. No, Heero did not like this situation in the least.

And that wasn't even taking in to consideration what that Executioner did to Relena when she "altered" her.

"No way! She didn't! Oh Hunter that's so funny!" said Relena, collapsing into a fit of giggles. 

The warmth and humor in Relena's voice only served to make Heero's frown deepen.

*

Hunter looked over at the young man who was watching him converse with the young Vice Foreign Minister like a cat a mouse hole.

Man, a glare like that could fell pigeons in mid air! thought Hunter.

"Oi! Heero's gonna end up killing someone with that deathglare of his," Duo muttered in an uncanny echo of Hunter's own thoughts. "If he's in love with the girl he should just tell her so."

"Like you're doing Mister Maxwell?" Hunter riposted, arching a brow. 

The one called Duo looked at Hunter sharply.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, scratching the back of his head in an embarrassed manner.

"Of course you don't," he said. Then Hunter leaned forward conspirationally "So tell me…what's the deal with those two? Gimme the dirt."

Duo grinned. Obviously this was a guy cut from the same cloth as he. Duo began a shortened version of the events that had transpired in 195, concentrating mainly on the interactions between his grouchy friend and the lovely blonde pacifist.

"…and every time she needs to be rescued, he's always there. Whether it's from assassins, rebels or just your average run of the mill terrorist group, Heero always manages to save her from harm. With some help from the rest of us, of course."

  
"It must be nice having someone who's always happy to have you rescue her."

Duo looked puzzled, but let it slide.

"Wanna know something really fun to do?" said Duo, mischievous look on his face.

"What?" echoing look on Hunters face.

"Go over there to where he's standing and see how pesky and troublesome you can make yourself before he finally draws a gun on you out of sheer irritation. It's a great sport."

"This wouldn't be one of those things you do to newcomers to get them in trouble would it?" asked Hunter suspiciously.

"Would I do that?" asked Duo, feigning innosence.

"I sure as hell would," was Hunter's reply. And without further ado, he wandered over to where Heero stood, keeping his eyes on all of the exits.

"Hullo mate," said Hunter in a friendly manner. Heero merely looked at him, his icy demeanor sending out the message 'go away and leave me alone' as obviously as a neon sign floating above his head.

"Nice place you have here," Hunter continued casually, leaning against the wall and spinning his plasma-blaster on one finger. "A bit far behind on the technology, but it has a very european feel to it. Say, d'you want to hear the second most annoying song in the world?"

"No. No singing," heero growled.

"Aww c'mon," said Hunter cajolingly. "I'm a very good singer."

" This is the kind of conversation that could only end in a gunshot."

"Bannanas, in pajamas, are coming down the stairs… Bananas, in pajamas are coming down in pairs… Bananas, in pajamas are chasing teddy bears…Everybody's goal is just to catch them unawares," Hunter started, quickly joined by one or two others who grinned wide enough to split their faces wide open.

"Second verse same as the first!" 

And Relena joined in with Duo, Hilde, and Sally who were all in on the joke. Wufei was glaring at his partner and telling her that she should be above such childishness. The younger Peacecraft looked like she was getting as much amusement at Heero's expense as the rest of them.

Duo called "Third verse, same as the first!" 

And Out Came The Gun!

Silence. For a moment. Then

"And speaking of first…" said Hunter, glancing significantly at Duo. "Does anybody know…who's on first?"

"Exactly," said Duo smoothly.

"What?" asked Hunter. By this time all of the ones in on the joke were smirking or snickering with mirth. Heero continued to look supremely unamused, which only made it funnier. Heero torture, always a grand sport to liven up any dull evening.

"Second," chimed in Hilde.

"Second what?" asked Hunter, feigning confusion.

"Yes," said Hilde.

"So Yes is the name of the guy on first?"

"No, Who's on first," said Duo.

"That's what I just asked you, who's on first?" demanded Hunter, looking pained. By this time, the entire assembly was watching the scene with varying degrees of amusement, or in one rare case disdain. Heero was looking progressively more hostile as the gag continued.

"Precisely," Hilde said.

"So Precisely is the name of the guy on first?"

"No, Who's on first!" exclaimed Duo.

"That's what I just-" Huner broke off, pretending to get frustrated at Duo's apparent obtuseness. "Okay, So…What is the name of the guy standing on first base?"

"No, What's on second base, Who's on first," clarified Sally.

"I just asked you! Tell me his name!"

"Who," said Relena innocently.

"The guy on first!"

"Who," reiterated Hilde.

"The guy, standing on first base, what's his name!"

"No, What's on second," Duo corrected matter of factly.

"Why I oughta-" grumbled Hunter.

"Third," Sally tossed in.

"What?" 

"Second," chirped Relena.

"I give up, at least tell me who's manning third."

"Why," said Duo sagely. 

"Because I want to know! Who's playing third?"

"No, Who's on first, third base is Why."

"Why what?"

"Third and second," Sally maintained.

"But Who's on first?"

"Yes."

"Yes is on first?"

"No, who's on first."

Kla-chleck! Hunter looked over to find the barrel of an archaic slug thrower being aimed at his temple by the now thoroughly annoyed body guard.

"The next one who speaks, gets it," Heero promised.

"Oh really?" said Hunter as he prepared for the final hit, the coup de grace. "What?"

"Second base!" Relena called and they all collapsed into fits of giggling, save Wufei who was too dignified and Zechs, who only unbent enough to smirk. Some one was bound to take it, the opening was simply too good to resist. The look on Heero's face was worth it too.

If this was what Heero was like after just one day with Hunter hanging around, they'd hate to imagine what he'd be like after a week!

* * *

Trowa watched the battle from his protected perch, everything in him just itched to be out there helping, but he knew, with the finely honed instincts of the warrior within him, that he would be more of a hindrance than a help in this battle. The battle, by its very nature was not something he could fight in.

"Jagged-Bolllt!" Bane yelled as a lance of lighning blasted at Nightheart from one side. This time, she wouldn't be able to dodge it. Nightheart calmly pressed one of the buttons on the arm-guards at her wrists as the bolt was about to strike her.

There was a flash as her attackers bolt smashed into something round and invisible, a dome covering Nightheart.

"You really should know better than that," said Nightheart. "Jagged-bolts can be deflected by modified shielding."

"A weak attack, I'll grant you," Bane replied. "But everyone knows that even modified shielding can't stand up to what even a Tenth Circle Nightsider can dish out when they concentrate. And I'm Fourth Circle, I tire of toying with you Executioner. Now it's time for a taste of what real power is."

Bane growled, and readied himself for another big attack. Trowa could feel the air humming with power, even from his vantage point at a relatively safe distance. It had a thick quality to it that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, it was like a low beat played just below the audible level that made his eardrums vibrate inside his head. Watching in facination, Trowa noted that Bane was surrounded by a thick glowing miasma of some kind of power.

Trowa saw a strange sphere of glow, about the size of a basketball, gather in the air above Bane's cupped hands. Nightheart's eyes widened. Trowa read the 'oh shit!' on her lips just before Bane shouted

"Drraaaagon's-breath!" and let fly the sphere.

Trowa could feel the heat from the dragonsbreath attack even from where he crouched. When it landed on the spot where Nightheart stood, concentrating on something, it burst in a flash of white so brilliant Trowa had to shield his eyes. There was a hot wind that felt like it came straight from the heat of a star followed by a shockwave that shook the surrounding stones of the building. When Trowa could look out again, all he saw was a smoking crater, glassed over by the heat of Bane's attack.

This guy could give some competition to Zero's buster rifle! Trowa noted in detached amazement. He felt obscurely glad that he did not live in that other Alternaty where there were even more of those Nightsider creatures running around killing people to score points in some game only they understood.

"Heh," said Bane smugly. "She wasn't so tough. I don't see how she killed all those other- What the-?!"

"Kiiuurreee-KAAAI!!!!" the voice of Nightheart screamed from the mouth of the smoking crater. In a concentrated burst of pure white light, a wall of power shot out from her body heading straight towards Bane. The ground tore up before the attack wall, crusting up into little pieces before disintegrating in the force of the blasting tsunami. The wall crested into a wave that crashed down onto Bane knocking him backwards and sending him flying, his body made a new crater as he was blasted down into it, resembling a meteorite crashing into the Earth.

Nightheart leapt into the crater after him, obviously intending to follow up her first attack with a quick victory, when Bane came flying at her from where he should have been lying unconscious in a coma if these Nightsiders obeyed the laws of Human Physiology. Bane's sword flashed in the moonlight in a killing arc as Bane fell down onto her position.

Clang! Trowa heard the reassuring ring of metal on metal. The fight continued this way for a minute, seeming oddly quiet compared to the previous sounds of blasts and massive property damage. 

It's down to blades then? Have they both used up their power? Trowa wondered, watching the skillful dance of attack and counter attack, lunge and parry and riposte and remieze, both gaining and losing ground in a complicated pattern that spelled injury or death at a misstep. Bane grew impatient once more and went in for a final kill, a fast flurry of attacks intending to surprise her into making a mistake.

Bane swiped at Nightheart from the side, intent on cutting off an arm at least. Nightheart blocked with her the non-bladed end of her weapon and murmured quietly

"Zah-Driini." 

Then at the point where her blade met his a bolt of Jagged-Volt, the same attack that Bane had used on her earlier, lanced down his own blade and fried him where he stood. For the second time, Bane went flying backwards and Nightheart followed calmly.

*

Nightheart put her Assassins mark on Bane's Contact Point. This was the part about her job that she had always hated. First came the stream of energies, smooth, flowing, effervescent, like a bottle of champane or a good long soak in the sun. 

Then came the memories. Scenes of the Nightsider's life, Alejandro Montoya. For a breif moment she experienced his life, lived it with him in brief flashes that were torn away as she drained his vital essence and his life tore further and further. Piece by piece.

At ten he'd taken a camping trip with his mother along a lake somewhere. Snip. At fifteen he'd buried her as the result of a skimmer crash. Wrench..snip. Twenty, he'd married, his bride…so beautiful. Later children. Snip, snip. Their faces flashed before her, she learned their names, how his family had died in an outbreak of a virus on a colony world they'd been settling. Tearing, wrenching, that was the only way it could be described. Each memory wrenched something deep inside of her. How he had been declared insane and sent to the Institute to be Healed. Snip. Then she learned of his victims, saw them each one by one, learned their names as he knew them. Nightheart soothed him when his panic welled up with the realization that he was about to die. He slipped further and further away from his body.

So tired. I feel so heavy… It hurts now! he said into her mind groggily. He had only just gotten his memories of who he had been before Conditioning and the Mindwipe while he hovered at the edge of death and life. That was the sad part, Nightheart could not spare him.

It won't hurt for long, Alejandro. Sleep now and may your journey along the Starpaths be better than what you suffered here.

Then came the final rush of energies, like jumping off a cliff and being surrounded by wind, then plunging into clear cold water.

Nightheart blinked once, disoriented. 

Every single time I do that, I could almost swear they take a piece of me with them, she thought resisting the urge to curl up into a fetal position and weep, or find a private corner somewhere and throw up all the contents of her stomach. How much longer can I do this? How much longer before there's nothing left? it was something she wondered every time it happened.

"Hey," said a voice behind her. Nightheart whirled, hands ready with another blast of Power. 

Oh, it's just him, she thought, standing down. Her uniform was a mess, charred, melted in some spots, bloodied. There were several gaping wounds that began knitting themselves together under her sharp gaze.

"Are you alright?" Trowa asked, looking into her face. Maybe it was a trick of the moonlight, but beneath her naturally dark skin, she looked pale.

"Yes," she said as she bent over one of the key pads in her suit. She started typing something.

"What are you typing?" Trowa asked, curious.

"A List. Names. All of his victims," said the Executioner shortly. She seemed to have regained her equilibrium. 

"How many?"

"Five hundred twenty-six attacks and four hundred ninety-two deathkills, in my alternaty. In yours, All of his attacks were deathkills, forty three all told. I'll give all of the names to your Lady Une later," she said. "Now that you've seen what you came to see, you should go and report back to your commanders."

"One final thing before I go," said Trowa quietly. His eyes flashed with intelligence.

"What is it?"

"You're one of these Nightsider beings yourself, right?"

"I believe that it's already been established," said Nightheart dryly.

"And the other Nightsiders feed off humans to get their energies and you don't?"

"Yes."

"Sooo…that means that you must get your enegies from somewhere."

"Smart man," she said. Her voice sounded as hollow as his was before he'd gained a place to belong. "I _am_ dependent upon the other Nightsiders to survive. My Symbiont needs those extra life energies or both me and it will die, and since I will not feed off other Humans, I feed off the Nightsiders. So, now you know. I'm just as wrong and evil as they are."

Trowa nodded mutely, understanding, as the last piece in the puzzle clicked into place.

  
"I must start on my next Hunt. You go back to your base."

There was a crackle as Nightheart's com-device flared to life.

*crackle* -ightheart…come in. *crackle* -ecutioner Nightheart…-ission status?

Hunter's voice sounded into the chill air from Nightheart's halfway melted com device.

"I'm here," she said calmly.

"Mission status?" asked Hunter.

"Subject Terminated."

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

End Part 6

Disclaimers: see part one.

A.N. Hello? Is anyone reading this? Please review, I feel so unloved. (Not that I'm trying to make anyone feel guilty or anything). I worked so hard on it, maybe I'm releasing it on the wrong date, is it the story line? There must be something wrong with it… I hope it's not the weird alternate timeline. I wrote it to answer a challenge but I must have failed somehow. Oh well, I already have up until chapter nine written. For those of you who have reviewed this unworthy one's fiction I thank you very much. Apparently I'm not doing so terribly.


	7. The Cage of Bonds

The tall and lanky ex-pilot Trowa Barton stood with his left shoulder leaning against the doorjamb. 

"I heard," said Heero, indicating the stranger from the other Alternaty with a nod of his head. 

Hunter Kylaran, the Executioner's partner, was wearing some kind of miniature head-piece and a set of gloves. The head-piece had a strange translucent shimmer glowing over his eyes attached to two small ear-pieces and a mouth-piece. The gloves were attached to the small keypads on his forearms by thin cords of bio-luminescent glowing wires. Well, they weren't wires in the traditional sense, more like flexible tubes that held some kind of glowing gel in them. The technology on their world was obviously very advanced, it looked like some kind of organic-based technology.

His hands were doing some kind of strange dance in the air, as if he were typing in a keyboard that only he could see.

Heero paused for a moment to listen in on what the stranger was saying to his absent partner.

"I've got the name of your next target, Nightheart. Lessee, Target 1739, Orin Gruder. Alias code-name, Lethal. Last known level, Sixth Circle. Specialties: Obsfucation, Volt-blasts, and dragons' breath. I don't believe we've encountered this one before, watch your back."

There was a slight pause and Hunter took the apparatus off from his head.

"She says she's just recently defeated Bane and is now going after her next Target, Lethal," Hunter reported. 

Heero tuned out the rest of whatever it was that the too-handsome stranger was saying in favor of talking with Trowa about the Executioner and her capacity for finishing the job.

"Well, what was the level of her performance?" he asked.

"Sufficient," said Trowa. "She'll get the job done. After what I've seen now, I think we should be thankful that the Nightsider we encountered at Velsink's estate didn't see us as enough of a threat to go all out. I doubt all of us would have gotten out of there alive."

"That powerful?" Heero said, raising an eyebrow. All he had seen so far was an enhanced strength and a few tricks on the eyes.

"That and more. Those Nightsiders can do strange things…" And Trowa went on to give a full description, at least as full as he could understand based on his observations, of what he had seen during the Executioner's encounter with the Nightsider Bane.

Heero nodded when he was finished and said

"I suppose that the President in the other Alternity wasn't lying when he said our situation was more dangerous than we knew."

"I agree, but even so, I dislike hiding down here while those things attack up there. I do not like the idea that there may be nothing that I can do about the situation."

Heero nodded again in silent agreement. Even so, they had their orders and they both knew it. They were to stay at the safe-house with the Vice-Foreign Minister and the stranger from the other Alternity and let the strange Executioner do the job she'd been brought there to do. Une and the others would be doing all they could top-side.

Relena was yawning again, trying to cover it up as usual. Yawning wouldn't get the paperwork done after all, and she had a lot of paperwork to go through before her meeting tomorrow. She would be discussing the recent Planned Independence Act she wanted to get rammed through the Council and she wanted to have everything ready and perfect so that she wouldn't have any nasty surprises pop up on her in the middle of her speech. She was really getting to hate surprises. First she was surprised by the death of a close associate, then she was surprised again by the attack on Velsink's estate during the middle of a mourning ceremony and then she was surprised by Heero's sudden arrival back into her life.

Relena still wasn't entirely certain what she should think about that last one. Whenever she was around him her heart started beating harder, the air seemed to grow thick with something she couldn't put a name to. She grew flustered; flustered was not a state she was overly familiar with, and neither was awkward now that she thought about it. She just felt so confused now. She knew she was glad to see him, but at the same time she resented him. She resented the fact that he could have this kind of an effect on her, even after so long a time of separation. That in turn made her…querulous. Honestly, how was she supposed to get anything done if all she could think about was his eyes resting on her? And she could feel his eyes on her too, almost like a physical sensation. She tried to push it all out of her mind, but it kept popping up, oh damn! She was too young to feel this way, she didn't want to feel this way! She'd had everything going perfectly well and fine until he'd just breezed back into her life, saving it in the process and reminding her exactly why she'd fallen in love with him in the first place. Really, she should be above such school-girlish nonsense. She was a fully grown adult dammit!

All of this was souring her mood. She just wanted things back the way they were. Sure, sometimes it was a little lonely, but at least she didn't have all of these little voices from inside of her shouting at her. It made her want to pick a fight with Heero, just to see if she could chase him off and get things back to the way they had been. She hadn't been confused, everything had been exactly as she had expected it to be. She could live securely in the knowledge that her heart was devoted completely to the people.

A voice behind her startled her from her musings.

"So you're a politician eh?" said the australio-british accented voice of the new comer from the other dimension. "I'm not real big on politics myself. I tend to look on it more as a necessary evil."

Well, if she couldn't pick a fight with Heero, at least she could have a discussion from somebody!

"When you have a lot of people grouped in one place, naturally there will be differences of opinion in how things should be run. Lots of people mean lots of opinions. Someone has to be settle the differences and keep things running efficiently," she said reasonably. "I think politics and politicians in general have gotten a bad wrap throughout history. And while many of them probably live up to the reputation of being greedy and self-interested, there are those who are in politics, like myself, who only want to serve their people and make things a little better."

"Even so, I try to stay out of political arena's and snake pits for pretty much the same reasons…it's dark, it's scary, I'm uncertain of the mentality of the residents, and I'm almost certain to get bit." ((A.N. That's J Micheal Strazynski.))

Relena giggled a little as Hunter smiled openly, inviting her to share in on the joke.

"Oh it's not that bad now, at least it's not as bad as the Romafeller Foundation was. Now if there were ever a hot bed for political intrigue _that would be it. They had it _all_: charismatic mad-men, political assassinations, powerful armies and the sword in the smile."_

"You sound like you know from personal experience," said Hunter, inviting a tale. One of the reasons why he was Nightheart partner was because he had the skills at interacting with people that she, by every observation, lacked. Her capacity for self-sacrifice was nothing short of astounding sometimes, but she wasn't exactly a people person.

"I reigned briefly as their queen once during the wars…" she said. "It had been my intention to unify Earth and disarm the standing army before making peaceful overtures to the citizens and governments out in space but…well, some people had other ideas."

Hunter did not miss the way her eyes flickered over to her brother briefly, nor did he miss the tone in her voice, she sounded briefly hurt.

"Anyway, I'm much happier being the Vice Foreign Minister. I feel I get a lot more accomplished this way. By peaceful discussion, both parties come out feeling the winner…at least that's the ideal. It's long, it's tiring, but I feel that it's also very rewarding."

"I imagine it is," he said warmly. It was nice to actually hold a conversation with someone for a change. Hunter spent a good deal of his time as Nightheart's partner in the cockpit of their Salamander-class ship the Artemis. Usually he was by himself waiting for Nightheart to check in with him. When Nightheart _was_ aboard the ship, she was usually asleep or in a trance healing herself. And when they actually had (gasp!) free time in between assignments, Nightheart wasn't the most talkative person. Sure, he could get her to converse on _some_ things, get her to listen to him (she was better at listening than talking) but Nightheart didn't often volunteer information about herself. Her favorite line being 'it's a secret.'

"You know Miss Darlian, you look rather tired. You should get some sleep you know. Me Mum once said, when you rest well, you work better."

"It's very sweet of you to be concerned Mister Kylaran-"

"Just call me Hunter. Everyone does."

"Hunter then, but I really have to finish perfecting this document for the Council Meeting tomorrow."

"Council meeting? But I thought you were going to stay here," said Hunter frowning in perplexity. That would make his job quite a bit more difficult. Granted, moving targets were often harder to hit, but when it came down to ground fighting, Nightsiders had normal Humans out matched and outclassed on every level. He knew that from experience.

"She _is_ going to stay here," said Heero, entering the conversation for the first time in his blunt, 'no-comprimises' manner. That preemptory tone of his made Relena's figurative hackles raise. 

Relena shot him a rebuking glance and said

"I'll thank you to not answer _for_ me Heero. And for the information of the both of you, I do not intend to hide away in here like some princess in a tower while there are things out there that require my presence. I'm sorry if this makes your job more difficult, but you'll just have to learn to live with it."

There! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! she thought.

"Relena. This matter is not up for debate. You're staying here. End of discussion," said Heero standing up and forcing her to tilt her head upwards to look at him. That was an age-old intimidation tactic and Relena recognized it the moment she saw it…and refused to let it work on her.

"No I am not, Heero," she said firmly. "If you like it here so much, _you_ may stay here… but as for me, I have more important things to do in my life than hide here and wait for the assassins to come and get me."

"It's not safe for you to be moving about out there. You'll be putting yourself and others at risk."

"I know I'm not the only target on their list, so that says that they are at risk whether I am there or not. And besides, no one ever said I was going to live to a ripe old age, I accepted the risks when I accepted my post. I'm going to be there tomorrow and nothing you or anyone else says is going to make me change my mind."

And she was wearing her infamous Relena Peacecraft Determined Face, that look that Heero and many others knew all to well. She'd worn it during meetings as princess of the Sanc Kingdom, she'd worn it while she'd been heading up Romafeller, she'd worn it when she'd refused to go anywhere until she'd made her brother see reason. She wasn't going to change her mind, not without a damned good reason. And since she'd already shot down the two best ones, well, things could get ugly.

"I don't have to change your mind," said Heero. If she could be stubborn then so could he. He hadn't survived two wars by giving up at the first sign of opposition. "I can just make you stay here."

"And what are you going to do Heero? Lock me in my room?"

"If necessary."

"You wouldn't dare," she said.

"Watch me."

The two stood there glaring at each other, or more accurately, Heero was glaring, and Relena was meeting his gaze wit a stubborn look of her own. Out of the entire room, Millirado was the only one who looked delighted.

"Children, children…come now. There's no need to fight. We can settle this peacefully, I'm sure," said Hunter disarmingly. 

Heero glared at the interloper and said

"Stay out of this."

"Heero, you be nice. Hunter is our guest," Relena reprimanded him.

Heero was seized by the sudden and inexplicable urge to say that he didn't want to be nice to him, in fact the less he saw of too-handsome stranger the happier that would make him. And why was she taking his part anyway?

"That's right Heero, you be nice. I'm your guest," said Hunter. He knew he was pushing his luck. The man already didn't like him, and antagonizing him like this was probably not very good for Hunter's health (or his life expectancy), but his mother had always told him that he'd never known when to leave well enough alone. And Nightheart had once said that Guardians, as a rule, did not have a very high life expectancy. So antagonize he would! 

Heero transferred his glare to the smart-ass from the next world over and said in none-too-friendly a tone

"This is none of your concern, get lost."

"Of course it's my concern. Besides, you two shouldn't be fighting at a time like this."

"Could you perhaps name a better time? I'll be sure to schedule it in," said Relena sweetly. "Besides, he started it, no one asked him to butt in."

"You're not going to the meeting tomorrow Relena," Heero said, putting a note of finality in his voice.

"And who, precisely, requested _your_ opinion?" she said shooting a cool glance at Heero. She'd noted that anger tended to melt away all of the confusion she felt around him. If she just kept him engaged in argument, then she could handle this stuff.

"It's not an opinion, it's a fact. You're staying here until this Executioner gets rid of those Nightsiders. Period," he said. There, that should do it. ((A.N. Yeah, right!))

"Enough you two," said Noin, finally cutting in before the situation could get out of hand. "Or three, or whatever. Miss Relena, I'm sorry but you have to stay here-"

"But the Council meeting-!"

"I know that it's important to you, but you're just going to have to miss it."

"I can't miss it. If I miss it, then Cerrid Velsink will get an unfair advantage over me in the council. I can't allow that, this act simply has to be passed through. I can't just hide here like some frightened helpless damsel while others are out there taking all of the risks, it's just not right. I'm not afraid of what will happen, as long as I can make the world a little better that's all I care about. But that can't happen if I'm hiding away in here."

It was at this point that Quatre entered the discussion.

"I understand how you feel Miss Relena," he said. "But you won't be helping anyone by going out there and dying needlessly."

Relena looked at him with swimming eyes and quivering lips. She was obviously feeling torn.

"But I-"

"Don't worry, the others on the list are currently being notified of an emergency that will require them to enter the protective custody of the Preventors. Lady Une has seen to it," Quatre soothed. 

Hunter glanced at him sharply for a moment, frowned in concentration, then dismissed whatever it was he'd been thinking of.

"Please stay here and be safe," said Quatre kindly. Then he treated Relena to the full effect of those baby blue eyes of his. Naturally all resistance crumbled in the face of such an onslaught.

"Okay. I will," she said. Quatre beamed. Relena beamed, general assembly beamed. With the possible exception of Heero who seemed to be glaring at Quatre now. 

* * *

Nightheart was hit by waves of pain and a little weakness as she cleaned the still-warm blood from her blade. Lethal had really done a number on her. Nightheart's reservoir of life-energies she'd used during her fight with Lethal had been replenished by that same kill, but she hesitated to waste the precious resource on Healing herself.  She was very conservative in her use of power, she used it primarily for those battles where using her Nightsider Powers was absolutely necessary, and for the limited amount of self-healing she allowed herself.

Ribs broken, left forearm snapped in two, collarbone shattered, no damage to my spine, right ankle badly sprained, right kneecap slipped, fibula snapped, left shoulder dislocated…I think that takes care of the bones, now the flesh, she thought taking an inventory of the injuries she'd accumulated this evening. After her mental damage report, Nightheart decided that she had no choice but to head back the Headquarters and get a full healing there. She would use her powers to heal the worst of the damage before limping back to the base and the med-fac awaiting her. There were burns, lacerations, gouges, slices and subcutaneous hemorrhages all over her body. 

Damn, there goes another uniform. I hope they don't take it out of my pay.

Nightheart sent the energies spiraling out along her body, flowing through the flesh and sinking it into the bone. She could've, if she had wanted to expend the energy, heal herself completely but that would have been using an unnecessary amount of a limited resource and she needed every extra ounce of power to fight the Nightsiders. The medical facilities of Doctor Ishora would have to be enough.

Bone knitting, even temporary bone knitting, was probably the most difficult Healing to perform as it required a great deal of concentration and will in order to do it properly. Nightheart usually used only enough Power for the bare minimum to keep her mobile and waited for the doc (or Hunter as was more often the case) to patch her up back at base.

First, the kneecap. The break was a clean one, fortunately for her, but reknitting the bone back together was still relatively difficult and required a lot of concentration. She gritted her teeth more out of habit as she wreched the kneecap back into place and sent precious healing life-energies into the bone. Slowly, carefully, she encouraged the bone to regrow itself, to fuse itself together again, calcium-silicate bit by calcium-silicate bit. Finally, agonizing minutes later, Nightheart was able to stop working on the break. As a final touch she slapped a soothing layer of balming energies on her sprain and levered herself to her feet. Her flesh could be taken care of back at Med-fac along with the wounds of her torso and arms. But the scent of scorched and burning flesh emanating from her left side really bothered her.

I need to report in, Hunter might just get tired of waiting around for me and come to check the mandate status himself. The stubborn fool had been known to do that on more than one occasion. She was always on his case about staying someplace safe and out of the way, but Hunter always insisted on being right by her side when she needed him. She sometimes got the feeling that he could see right through her gruff treatment of him and had divined that she was trying to protect him. 

"How's our favorite Executioner doing this fine evening?" Hunter's cheery voice sounded through her earpiece. "All's quiet on this front."

"Mandate status: Subject terminated," she reported. "I'm badly injured so I'm returning to the base Hunter. Is everything ready?"

"Ready and waiting for you," he agreed. "Do you want me to come and help you back?"

"No, I'll be fine."

"I sometimes wonder why I keep asking you that since that's the exact same answer you always give me," he said. Nightheart could see in her mind's eye the look he was most probably giving her. The one that said "you're being the same stubborn ass you always are and you should learn to accept help graciously." She smiled softly into the darkness, he would be waiting there when she got in.

…

Nightheart staggered back to the place in which the base had been housed at. Hunter was waiting for her at the gate, Nightheart tried to give him a reassuring look through the blood running down her head. Doctor Ishora ordered her onto one of the floating stretchers and Nightheart was taken to the med-fac that had been set up on this world. It came complete with a goop-tank and vibe-unit, and oh look, there was the scanner couch. 

She wouldn't be leaving for several hours yet, she knew that. And she was likely to get read another lecture by the good Doctor for being careless with her body. Well why should she be careful? Her Symbiont would take care of any injuries, including wounds that would most likely kill any normal person. She was here to execute those Nightsiders as fast as possible, damage to her person was irrelevant as long as Nightheart was fulfilling her duties.

She was also likely to be scolded again by Hunter for being so reckless. She didn't know why he persisted in bawling her out about it, he certainly didn't have any room to throw stones at her about reckless behavior. He should know by now that Nightheart was capable of taking care of herself, as far as she was concerned she was the one protecting him, not the other way around. She knew deep down that seeing someone he considered a friend come home Mandate after Mandate covered in blood with bones sticking out of her skin really bothered him, but… this was the only way she could think of to protect people and the only way she could think of to make enough money to rebuild her Homeland. No sacrifice was too great for her people.

Hunter probably thinks I'm just greedy, always insisting on being paid a full bounty for each Nightsider I eliminate, she thought. But she couldn't afford tell him the reason why either. It was one of the basic tenets of Homeland and her people, an iron-clad law that is drilled into all of The People since the time of their birth...no Outworlder is to know anything about Homeland or The People. Ever. So her reason for the sheer greed she displayed would have to remain a secret. 

"Okay Executioner," said Doctor Ishora, cheerfully. "Let's see how much damage you did to yourself tonight."

"I did not damage myself doctor," Nightheart corrected. "The other Nightsider did."

"Well, you could still be more careful Executioner. Now, are you in any pain? Does it hurt anywhere?"

"What? You mean besides everywhere?" was her dry retort.

*

Doctor Ishora looked over at her new assistant, a very pleasant woman named Sally Po who made her living as not only a doctor but also as a field-agent with the Guardians on this world who called themselves Preventors.

The doctor explained what she was doing to the woman who looked interestedly over her shoulder. She was going to send the scanners at her to get a full picture of the damage done to Nighthearts body _this_ time. 

The scanner globe floated over towards Nightheart and she eyed them antagonistically. They spun around her emitting small beams of light here and there. Nightheart looked over at the holo-screen to see her current skeletal system displayed broken bones were highlighted in blue with the stats scrolling on a screen beside them, cuts sprains, lacerations, burns and other minor fleshly injuries showed up a second later.

"Structural damage report complete," the chirpy voice of the med-fac computer reported a moment later. 

Doctor Ishora and Doctor Po were in deep discussion about the unusual bone and cellular composition of the Nightsiders as Ishora set up the special bone-grow unit for Nightheart. Doctor Ishora breifly explained what a Symbiont was and how it worked.

"Symbionts are a non-corporeal energy carbono-based lifeform developed by the Committee. The original development project was begun by a bio-organic technology corporation searching for a way to facilitate the habitation and colonization of Class H and below worlds," the doctor said. "Once the experiments were deemed too hazardous to be continued further research was officially banned. The Committee however saw an opportunity to create stable telekinetics, something that happens only in only one out of three thousand telepaths, and telepaths themselves only occur strongly in about three in two hundred people."

"So telepaths in your society aren't precisely common then," said sally. "You know, I've never met a person with any real telepathic ability before, it's considered a myth on this world."

"The Telepath Gene is the result of experiments done hundreds of years ago, when our people were just starting to reach out into the stars, but enough history. As I was saying about the Symbiont... The Symbiont invades the cellular nuclei of the host, most specifically the DNA/RNA patterns. Physiological and bio-chemical changes then ensue. Senses are heightened, for example visual and audio acuity is enhanced as is tactile sensation and memory retention."

"Yes," said Nightheart from where she waited on the scanner couch. "I have the blessing of being able to recall in minute detail all of the people I have killed. How grand."

Doctor Ishora was well accustomed to one of her most difficult yet fascinating patient's moods.

"The Symbiont's Host's skeletal structure is changed from a weak calcium to a carbonocalcium-silicate mix, making them much harder to break. In the original designs for the Symbiont, this was to compensate for the extreme G-Forces on higher G worlds. Muscle capacity is increased, as are reflexes, the result of gaining full use of the brains pathways, synapses and so on."

"The regenerative capabilities of the Nightsiders are something that I'm vitally interested in, as a doctor. The body is already a wonderful machine, but the enhanced capabilities granted by the Symbiont is something I think many people could benefit greatly from. People who have suffered from accidents leaving them paralyzed and so forth, the only thing standing in the way is that damned requirement for life energies."

"Wouldn't any kind of energy do?" questioned Sally. "I mean, energy is enegy whether it comes from a socket, a dog, or a Human being, right?"

"That would be true; but the sadists of the Committee developed this Symbiont for the purpose of taking Human lives, and so, that is the only kind of life energy the Symbiont will accept. I have developed a sort of nutrient bath that the Symbiont uses in order to repair its host, but it won't accept the energies as a substitute for the kind it feeds off to live."

Doctor Ishora tapped a few keys on the pad and the gel-hands of the resetters descended on its patient, and began to set each bone in place.

"I'm still investigating the phenomenon that allows these Nightsiders to manipulate that life energy the way they do. The Executioner here is a very good sport for submitting to all of the tests and light experiments I run on her," said Doctor Ishora, riffling the girls' hair while Nightheart shot her a dour look.

I'm certainly glad my Symbiont grants me a higher pain threshold than Normals, Nightheart thought. Even so, she knew it would still hurt. Badly. Nightheart gritted her teeth as the bones were reset and all but sighed in relief as the needles injected themselves into her skin and the wonderful paste begin to harden and solidify along the cracks of the breaks.

A few minutes later the scanner-globes were hovering around her once more. The new image hovering above the holo-display showed several thick patches on the bones that had just been set.

Nightheart knew from experience that the bone-grow would take several-hours to re-grow the break. It was not instantaneous like her own Healings.

"Alright Executioner, you know the drill," said Doctor Ishora. "Into the tank." Nightheart gave the doctor a look that bordered on recalcitrant, (she hated the "goop-tank," as she had dubbed it) but stripped off her garments anyway. While she was doing so Ishora explained to the new lady (whom Nightheart took to be another doctor) precisely what the goop-tank was for.

"Because of the Executioner's unusual cellular make-up, we have a special kind of fluid filled with energies that her Symbiont can use in place of the ones in her Reservoir, a reservoir is the accumulation pool of energies she stores up as a result of her kills, to heal her flesh and bones. Once everything is ready, she'll slip into a healing trance and her Symbiont will do the rest."

Nightheart fastened the breather mask to her face and stepped up onto the platform, naked of course. 

"Are you ready?" questioned Doctor Ishora.

"Yes. Proceed please," was Nightheart's answer.

From a ring at the edge of the platform a round wall of plas-glass shot up, surrounding Nigheart and forming a tube. Shortly thereafter a spot in the floor opened up and began pumping in the energy rich fluid. The tube began to fill with the slimy, viscous, slightly glowing, clearish-blue-green goop that Nightheart would heal in. It didn't take very long to fill in over her head and she was soon floating in it like a body part stored in formaldehyde in a mad scientists lab.

Nightheart closed her eyes and went into deep-trance.

*

"What's up doc?" asked Hunter, strolling into the med-fac. He usually dropped by to check on his partner at the earliest opportunity. He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything for her if something did go wrong, but being able to visually confirm that she was on her way to a recovery did wonders for his sanity. Seeing her come home that badly beaten night after night really bothered him. "How's the patient?"

"Same as usual, floating in the tank," was the doctor's absent reply as she and her new associate went over in finer detail the patients medical status. Ishora had been expecting Hunter to show up about then. He always did.

"How're her injuries? Nothing too serious?"

"About the same as ever, gashes, lacerations, a few broken bones, her left side is charred. She should be fine in a few hours. However, I don't want her going after any more Nightsiders for at least seven hours...that paste has to set. Regular activity is fine, but no working. Preferably I'd like to see her off her feet, but I think pigs would fly first."

"You know Nightheart's only going to say that executions are her regular activities," was Hunter's reply. 

"Whoa! Hey check it out! A dead body!" said the voice of Duo peeking his head into med-fac. "And it's a chick too! Hey doctor, whatcha doing with the dead chick?"

"She isn't dead Duo," said Sally.

"Sure could've fooled me," Duo said going in for a closer look at the naked woman floating in the glowing tank. "Look at those wounds, she's sliced open clean to her rib bones! I can see them, count them even. And her left side is burnt to a crisp, eew."

"The Executioner is obviously out of commission for several days if not weeks," said the voice of Heero Yuy dispassionately from the doorway.

"Is she going to get better doctor?" asked Relena peeking in from behind Heero as well as sending him an admonishing look for his callousness. "Hunter said that she'd be fine, but how could anyone survive that?"

"Yeah, she's practically barbecue," chimed in Duo. "She come in original or extra crispy?"

Relena glared at Duo and said

"Have some respect for the girl's privacy, can't you see she doesn't have any clothing on?"

"Whoa!! No way! Hey guy's you've got to come see this!" said Duo, ignoring Relena's concern over the tank-girl's state of dress. Doctors Ishora and Po exchanged a suffering glance. 

"Check it out, the wounds are closing all by themselves. _Freaky_!"

Duo watched in fascination and amazement as the charred flesh started turning pinkish around the edges, then finally smoothing out into white scar tissue which faded into her normal golden-bronze skin. The continents of scorched flesh gradually became islands, dissappearing altogether in some spots.

"Wow Heero, she's even weirder than you are."

Heero cocked his head to one side and studied the phenomenon with an air of detachment. Useful. He'd be willing to bet Doctor J would give his eye teeth to get a hold of something like this. It was this kind of effect that he'd been trying to achieve with many of his experiments and even in Heero's own training.

Relena hit him over his head with the nearest clip board.

"All males out of the vicinity," she said, having had enough of that poor girl's maidenly modesty being offended by a bunch of strange men gawking at her. "Out out out out out! Go on! shoo!" she said chasing them all out with a brandished clipboard. 

"And especially you!" she said shoving Duo out of the medical facilities. 

"I saw her wounds start closing and healing over by themselves. You can't tell me that isn't weird," Duo said as Relena conducted him forcibly down the hall.

"I don't care. That doesn't give either of you the right to stare at her when she's not properly dressed or even conscious enough to beat you up for it. Besides, this isn't a carnival freak show. Miss Nightheart is being kind enough to help us out of a difficult situation and I won't have either of you being rude or indecent towards her."

"Sheesh, you sound like someones nagging mother."

"Good. Now scat."

* * * 

Relena made her way back to her quarters with a protective Heero trailing afterward. She was grateful to all of them for their concern but she was starting to wish that everyone would just leave her alone already! There was still a smoldering bit of anger towards Heero for his incredible high-handedness earlier. Honestly! He seemed to think he could show up when ever he damned well pleased and just start ordering her about, the sheer cheek! But the lingering bit of anger and resentment she was feeling towards the man who still showed up in her dreams (more often than she was comfortable with) was swallowed up by the tumultuous ocean that was her other feelings. 

No matter how desperately she tried to shove them aside, they just kept popping up to stare her in the face. Why couldn't things ever be simple for her anymore? Putting aside the fact that her daily life was never far from complicated, things hadn't been nearly so bad before he'd showed up. Now she couldn't seem to concentrate on anything. It just wasn't fair! She couldn't help the strange connection she felt between them…she knew when he was unhappy because she felt it too. Like for instance, earlier today she'd felt a sharp pang of jealousy just at the time when that new boy Hunter had been paying attention to her, and then it was there again later when Quatre had convinced her to stay there in the safe-house when every other attempt he'd made to do so had failed. 

She'd always known when Heero was nearby, it was like she could sense him or something. In the past few years since the close of the Barton Conflict she had known he was alive….somewhere. She just had this feeling that if anything were to happen to him, she'd know. Right now she could almost feel his body heat from the other side of the door, it was like sunlight on her skin or a buzzing along her spine. She didn't know what this strange connection was between them, and part of her (the part of her that shied away from becoming too deeply involved with others) was reluctant to go probing at it.

I just need to get out of here for a while, that's all she thought. This being enclosed so suddenly and with so many people around me all the time is making me claustrophobic. I'd feel better if I could go for a walk in the open air by myself.

It wasn't likely to happen however, Heero had made it quite clear that he intended to mew her up in this place like a precious jewel until the current crisis was over with. He was correct when he'd pointed out that Relena had no way of defending herself, not even against the common garden-variety attackers. She'd been a normal girl before she'd become the Vice Foreign Minister and the martial arts had never been a part of her regimen. She wouldn't know what to do if she were attacked and there wasn't anyone nearby to help her.

An imp of mischief whispered in her ear that she should simply sneak out on her own and damn the consequences, but her own common sense quickly asserted itself. For one thing, she had a responsibility to the people who cared about her, if she ran off and something happened to her she knew that they would only blame themselves for her actions. For another thing, it was unlikely that she would get very far even supposing she was to try sneaking away, the safe-house grounds were rigged out with very sensitive security equipment which would do just as good a job of keeping her in as it would of keeping others out. So she was stuck here in this house crowded with people that weren't likely to leave her completely alone (she knew that Heero was waiting just outside her only partially closed door listening for the merest hint of danger). She was stuck here until some girl floating in a tank of glowing slime could finish killing off a bunch of powerful assassins from another world.

I almost wish I were powerful like her, Relena thought wistfully. Commanding that kind of strength and prowess was something completely beyond Relena's experience, she didn't know the first thing about fighting or any of that kind of thing. I bet I could go wherever I wanted and no one would ever think of telling me that I was too helpless to do anything; that I needed to be guarded and watched over.

Relena sighed and flopped down onto her bed. She was bored. Normally she would be hip-deep in political matters and meetings right now and she found the sudden lack of activity depressing. It was hard to look on it as a surprise vacation when the people around her were dressed to wage a small scale war. She stared at the ceiling for a minute, and got back up. She didn't have anything else better to do, perhaps she could find a good book or something.

Relena walked out of her room and down the hall only to realize that she was being followed by her not so discrete bodyguard. It was yet one more thing adding to the general feeling of being too crowded. Relena was accustomed to solitude, she'd been solitary as a child and was still that way to a degree as an adult. Certainly in her political dealings there were people surrounding her every minute; but her dealings with them were all business and once they were done with one another they parted ways until circumstances required interaction with one another once more. But here in this safe-house things were different. Relena got the feeling of being constantly watched and it was more than a little irritating. Add to that the fact she was certain she had other places she could be and better things she could be doing with her time and it was enough to make anyone start dreaming about biting the heads off chickens!

"Heero," she said as he continued to escort her down the hall.

"Hm?" he said, making an inquisitive noise in her throat.

"Could you possibly _not_ follow me around like this? I'm certain that I'm reasonably safe inside these walls and being followed around only makes me nervous."

"No," he answered promptly.

Relena shrugged. She hadn't really thought he'd go for it anyway and so wasn't surprised by his blunt refusal. She continued on down the hallway, doing her best to ignore her unwanted companion.

"Why?" he asked suddenly, grabbing her elbow to stop her. Relena turned to look at him and felt a vague tugging at her heart. Then, as if the words were being dragged from his mouth against his will he said 

"Why don't you want me to guard you?"

"It's nothing personal against you at all Heero," she amended quickly. "Its just that I'm more accustomed to taking care of myself and making my own decisions like the full grown woman I am and not having everything taken out of my hands. This new situation is not sitting well with me, and being followed by you is just the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Being threatened with death is bad enough, but being locked up because I'm too helpless to defend myself and having someone taking all decisions from my hands…I don't like that at all."

After a pause to consider her words, Heero finally nodded. Relena felt a small bit of tension leave the air as his gaze no longer bore into hers. It was replaced by that almost mystical bond-feeling again, as if some kind of invisible thread tied them together.

Huh, she thought vaguely. There's that strange feeling of connection again. Like if I reached out to him there would be something strange and wonderful there. I can almost guess what he's thinking now. This strange bond between us, it's telling me things about him. I wonder if he can feel it too? Maybe I'm just imagining it… It makes no sense… 

Her thoughts trailed off as she was drawn into his eyes. The eyes that were like two fine sapphires, held something more than predatory sharpness for once. The focus on the here-and-now was gone and in its place there was a different kind of intensity. Instead of making her shrink back it made her lean forward in anticipation. What it was she was anticipating, she didn't know precisely.

What is this strange connection I have to him… Why do I feel as though every eternity has existed waiting for this one moment? What is this?

The air was humming with something, some indefinable pulse that made her body feel as if it were one giant harp string next to a tuning fork. 

Then, with a feeling like a rubber band finally breaking from constant pressure, something finally snapped into place. The strange feeling of being bonded intensified and Relena found that she didn't have to search into his eyes to see what he was feeling. She knew, knew his every hidden emotion as surely as she knew her own. With a flash of dazzling light she felt the last link snap into place and a line of pure communication opened up between them. 

It was like some greater force, undeniable and outside the both of them, was trying to bring them together, trying to show them one another without the barriers that they normally kept between them. Relena suddenly felt light, as thought her essence was separating from her physical shell and joining his. The world froze, time stopped and in between one breath and the next she SAW him. She was with him.

The inside of his heart was sharp and jagged, like ice crystals. In the facets of the crystals she could see scenes from his life. 

Indeed she could sense more things waiting under the surface of the ice, like flowers waiting for spring, or the sun hidden behind the clouds. His heart wasn't dead, merely hidden behind his intense focus on the objective set before him. He'd been trained as a warrior, yes but he'd undertaken the training of his own free will, because he'd thought that it was the right thing to do at the moment. His training had been rigorous, his instructor had tried to bury his humanity, making him into the perfect weapon. His kindness, his compassion had been buried, but not eradicated. During the course of his missions, it had popped up at the oddest times making him do things that seemed foreign to his nature.

Is that why you saved me? Is that why you're here now? Heero, I still want to see you.

Get lost.

Heero…

Before all of her questions could be answered though, they were interrupted…by Noin of all people.

"Oh, sorry to interrupt," she said glancing back and forth between the two of them. 

Relena was acutely aware of his grip in her elbow and how close they were standing to one another.

"Quatre wanted me to find you to invite you to the lounge for some tea."

"I-I was just on my way to the library," said Relena, more than a little unsettled. She suddenly found herself short of breath. "I was planning on staying there for a while. I like books."

"Oh. Well alright then," said Noin. She looked almost amused as she walked away. 

Relena put her head in one hand. Great, just great. This was all she needed, as if she weren't smothered enough. Now with a small rumor of her becoming "involved" with someone, she'd never get any time to herself. She could just hear the badgering questions now, the innuendo. It was always fun to tease someone about an unspoken attraction but the joke swiftly became less funny when it was aimed at herself. Damn.

She continued on to the library. She could at least read a book in the quiet to get her mind off all those things she'd rather not think of right at the moment, things like her undeniable attraction to the stoic mussy-haired Gundam Pilot. The doctor that had come with Hunter and his strange partner The Executioner had said it would only be a few hours until the girl in the tank came out of her Healing-trance, perhaps they would get an opportunity to talk then and Relena would finally get some straight answers for a change.

* * * 

Nightheart floated in the energy rich slickness that was the "goop-tank," just drifting for a few minutes before waking fully from her lethargy. It was so easy to just float there, drifting in a timeless void while the world spun round without her. It was one of the only times she ever felt at peace, that gentle time on the edge of waking and dreaming.

It's so nice here, she thought soporifically. So warm, so peaceful. If I close my eyes, I know I'll fall into full sleep…and I know I'd dream of Home.

She heaved an internal sigh and pulled herself half-unwillingly into full wakefulness. She didn't want to get up, but she knew she had to. There were people that needed her and she had to earn her paycheck. She punched a button on her breather mask and the luminescent fluids started slowly draining into its revitalizing tanks to be recycled and readied their next use. Once the water levels had lowered down past her mouth, she removed the breather mask and reached for the rim of the tank to haul herself out.

She stood on the tile floor of the emergency med-fac with the viscous fluid dripping and oozing off from her like radioactive slime.

"Yuck," she muttered as she always did. "It's going to take hours to vibe all this stuff off from me. What I wouldn't give for a real shower."

"Ah and the patient is awake I see," said a voice that Nightheart didn't recognize. She looked over to her left sharply to see if the new presence was a threat. She wasn't her best just out of the tank, still shaking off the effects of the healing trance and the slimy feeling radiant goop too. Blearily she recognized the golden haired woman as being the one who had assisted doctor Ishora earlier that day, (night?) Whatever. 

"Who are you?" she asked bluntly. Never the height of subtlety even at her best, Nightheart didn't have the extra energy to spare for tap-dancing around now.

"Doctor Sally Po, Agent Water of the Preventors," said the woman. "Doctor Ishora stepped out for a breather, your partner went out to check on he status of your charge, Miss Relena. How are you feeling?"

"The same as I always do after a dip in the tank," said Nightheart. "Slimy. I'd give anything for a real hot water shower right now. I just got back from a stint in Space Nation, and water is too precious a resource to be used for daily showering unless you're very wealthy. (Outworlder barbarians)" she muttered under her breath and continued on. "I miss taking real showers, vibe-scrubs do not leave me feeling cleansed in the way water does. The strange Outworlder technology they use for cleaning oneself feels unnatural."

"There are showering facilities available to you if you wish to use them," said Sally as she handed Nightheart a towel and a robe to cover herself with.

"Thank-you. I will use them and return to the field immediately. I still have more Mandates to fulfill."

She suited actions to words and cleansed herself in the shower alcove placed nearby, glorying in the feel of real honest-to-the-Gods-of-her-Ancestors hot running water running down her skin and removing all trace of the slick viscosity from her skin. When she got out a generous twenty-five minutes later, Nightheart found her kit-bag already waiting for her near the towels. Obviously someone had anticipated her needs. Inside the bag, following an order as exact as any shamans medicine pouch, her pouch of toiletries, her clothing, a scaled down version of her armor and her beloved Longblades. 

Twenty minutes later Nightheart had her pitch-black hair coiled up and out of her way and she had dressed herself in the matte black coverall the Alliance had designed for her as he working uniform. Nightheart had no idea what kind of material it was made out of (some kind of synthetic, that much she knew) but it was durable enough to withstand light attacks, which was to say it could stand up to some pretty heavy punishment. She slipped on her boots, putting a dagger in each of them, then her Longblades strapped across her back. The longblades were something she'd carried with her from Homeland, a legacy. Her people did not usually fight using weapons that were ineffective in tight environments, preferring the Kai'rrin Fighting Knife (or knives) or a distance weapon to a blade; but her family was peculiar and kept to a lot of the strange old ways. Light pectoral armor went on over the blade straps, mainly because she felt naked without it, and finally she slipped on her gauntlets with the small throwing knives sheathed in the fore arm and the retractable knuckle-blades at the back of the hand. She would don the rest of her armor (filled with strange Outworlder technology) later. Now she would meet with her partner and get her next Mandate.

As she had known he would be, Hunter was lounging nearby waiting for her to emerge. 

"Ah! You're looking a far cry better than when you came in," he said cheerfully. 

"Yes. I feel well enough to begin my work again. Tell me about my remaining Mandates."

"Well, it's the old fashioned good news and bad news scenario. The good news is that with three down you only have nine more to go and of those nine left, five are Tenth Circle or below. The bad news is, you have two Second Circle Nightsiders and worse yet, they're a team."

"Nightsiders rarely work in teams," the Executioner noted. "This isn't who I think it is, is it?"

"You guessed it," he said with false cheer. "Our old and dear friends Osiris and Isis. Only Nightsiders would walk around naming themselves after ancient gods of death, the ego."

"They still hate you Hunter. I now wish doubly that you had stayed behind," said Nightheart, worry creeping into her usually opaque eyes. Her old enemies had once tried to use her partner to get to her, and discovered that Hunter was far from a mere helpless Normal. Hunter, being quick and resourceful, had managed to lure the two of them into a trap that, at the very least had incapacitated the pair of Assassins for a few days. Ever since then, Osiris and Isis had pursued a vendetta of revenge against the erstwhile Normal for the sheer affront of daring to wound them. Nightheart felt that old urge of protectiveness rise up in her at the thought that those two would once again awaken their blood feud with her partner.

"Well what's locking them in a room and pouring liquid plasma over them between enemies? Don't tell me they're still sore about that?" He said, injecting even more facetiousness into his tone. 

"I would imagine so. It's adding insult to injury that someone they consider weak and inferior to them in every way would damn near manage to kill them. Such has not been accomplished before. I will go and Hunt them down first so that I may get rid of their threat to both you and me once and finally."

"Just a minute Nightheart," Hunter called as she made to walk off. "Before you try the disappearing act again, Doctor Ishora wanted me to tell you that you aren't to do any official Executioner business for the next seven hours. She said normal movement is fine, but she doesn't want you jarring those breaks."

"My job is my normal movement," she said, just as Hunter had known she would.

"I knew you'd say that," he said. "But you know as well as I do that that paste has to set for at least five hours. So you're not to go off on any hunts, and if you do, I'll know and I'll be forced to tell the President you haven't been listening to your doctor, and he'll dock your pay."

Hunter and Ishora both had found that it was the only way to get Nightheart to mind the doctors orders.

"Very well," she grumbled, obviously not liking it. "I'll be good for the evening. I hope you don't expect me to stick around."

"What? Me? Ask you to be—gasp-- personable?" Hunter said sarcastically, raising his eyes in mock horror. "Never!" 

"Good. I will remind you that there are still several Nightsiders out there running loose while I'm convalescing. Even if I am not able to operate at full strength there is still something I can do to prepare for when I am."

"Right, right," said Hunter. "Usually information gathering is my own forte, you lack the people skills for it."

"People skills are not required if you have the right financial backing," Nightheart pointed out. "I worry about this fortress however. Because it is so well guarded, it is sure to be a target."

"You worry about your charge being attacked while you are gone?" Hunter inquired archly. Nightheart was a bit of a stickler for honor and that honor demanded that she fulfill the letter and spirit of her contract. Relena would be safe, and the Nightsiders would be eradicated.

"Yes. I would recommend that she clear out. I won't be engaging enemy hostiles for a little while yet, that means that they will be building up their strength in preparation for an attack. This place is too obvious and too ill equipped to handle a Nightsider attack, I would like you to upgrade it with your technology. The security in this place would never be able to stand up to an attack by even a Twelfth Circle Nightsider, even against an army of their Servants it wouldn't hold up for long. "

"I'm well aware of that, I've been able to set up some of my equipment, but one or two of the people here have been a little leery of me. They don't understand the technology and so they don't know what it is that I'm doing. The one named Heero has taken an especial dislike to me," Hunter said, managing to sound aggrieved. Nightheart, knowing well her partners nature, smiled shrewdly up at him and said

"And I suppose you would not have done anything that might exacerbate that dislike, have you?"

"I've just been my usual charming self," Hunter said innocently.

Nightheart gave a short sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. "No wonder he doesn't like you." Then she grinned and glanced sideways at him to show she'd been joking.

"Now that wasn't very nice," Hunter said in a light tone. He still had one or two more cards up his sleeve to play. Continuing on in his easy-going manner Hunter said

"If you're going to insist on being unpleasant company, I won't tell you what I know about where the Nightsiders have been forming their bases at. I've been able to keep my ear on the heartbeat of this place and as usual, I've pulled out the very information you need in record time. I am after all the best at intelligence gathering; I told you that you needed me with you."

"Your speed at intelligence gathering leaves me speechless," she said flatly, giving him a look that told him his skills were good but his ego needed work. Hunter grinned back at her and Nightheart understood; as usual he'd been goading her. 

"Well, leaving you speechless isn't a very difficult task since you hardly ever make conversation in the first place."

"Do you have it or not?" she demanded shortly, certain that he was enjoying this. When she looked over at him from the corner of her eye, sure enough, she saw a small smug expression hovering about his face like a moth circling a flame. He knew something and it was something he knew she'd want to know. Her partner might have the most uncanny ability to sniff out information she required wherever it hid itself, but he could be the most _annoying person to try to hold a conversation with. Despite his faults however, Nightheart wouldn't trust any other Outworlder to be her partner (and she was still trying to wrap her mind around this whole 'Outworlders are people too' idea). So far what she had mostly seen in the Outworlds was a lot of corruption, greed, death and pain. But Hunter was different, he was almost like one of The People… too bad he wasn't one._

"Of course," Hunter grinned gamely, making her work for it. Nightheart gritted her teeth.

"Well, what is it?" she ground out. 

"What if I told you it was a secret?" he questioned, seeing if she'd take the bait. 

"I'd have to nail your head to the wall and leave what was left of your body for the scavengers to pick at…partner. Now if you like I can be much more imaginative."

"Do tell," he replied. 

"Oh yes," she said lightly with an all to bright glint in her eyes. It wasn't quite a joke, but it wasn't exactly a threat either. "For example did you know that there are exactly one hundred and seventy two ways to bring about excruciating pain using the first and last fingers on each hand alone?"

"I didn't know the exact number, no," he said, in that way he had of trying to draw her out.

"Would you get to the point?" she said bluntly.

"How about tea first?"

"How about not?"

"Lunch, dinner, a midnight snack?" he pursued relentlessly. Hunter was the tenacious sort and Nightheart wondered if it wouldn't be easier to simply humor the man and get it over with. 

"Compromise," she stated finally. "I eat, you talk."

"Done. Sheesh, the lengths I have to go to just to get you to sit down and share a decent meal with me like a normal person. You do still eat food, don't you? Or are you above such mundane things?" 

Nightheart frowned at his posh mockingly posh tone. He was goading her. Again.

She sighed and followed him to the common area reserved for eating. Stupid Outworlder, sometimes she wondered why she put up with his incessant chatter and teasing and his never ending quest to see just how much he could draw her out of her shell. But then, she already knew the answer to that. He reminded her of what it was to be a person, he was someone she cared aboutso much she would go to any lengths to protect him. Their bond might come from outside of both of them, and she might never want to tell him the truth about the soul-bond between them that she kept hidden from him with her Nightsider abilities… but sometimes, he was the only thing still keeping her sane in a life filled with torment and bloodshed.

* * *

Relena found herself quite unable to concentrate on the words in the pages of the book before her. Her mind kept wandering back to the incident in the hallway just a few short hours ago. She couldn't tell what Heero thought about it, but then, she could never tell what Heero thought about anything since he always seemed to have the same sullen expression on his face whether he was happy or sad. She'd seen him look angry, and she'd seen him look vaguely surprised, but that seemed to be the extent of his facial expression range. She supposed she could try using that funny intangible cord connecting them, the one she couldn't see or touch but knew was there just the same, but that would have felt like cheating. She didn't like it when people invaded her life and privacy (such as they were doing right now with well-meaning intentions) and she didn't believe it was right to go invading other peoples privacy. So despite her burning curiosity, his inner thoughts would just have to remain a mystery to her unless he invited her to share them.

He surprised her by making a throat-clearing noise to get her attention.

"Relena," he said. She suppressed a small shiver at the base of her spine when he said her name. Oh Lord, she really wasn't sure about this…maybe she should have taken Noin up on Quatre's offer of tea with the rest of the group, because-

"You've been staring at the same page for over forty minutes," he noted. 

Relena wasn't sure how she should reply to that 'I like the page, it's pretty?' or perhaps 'I'm a very slow reader.' Neither of which he was likely to buy. So she settled for a

"Yes."

There was one of those long, drawn out pauses. Finally he said

"You're nervous."

"I don't have anything to be nervous about," she replied. Well, aside of the people who wanted to see her dead, and the assassins brought over to kill her and the fact that she was sitting alone in a room with a man she felt a feverish attraction to; she had nothing to worry about. She didn't even have the release of her work either, that fact galled at her with her inactivity, making her more restless and more unable to concentrate. She give about anything for a breath of fresh air and some time to herself right then, instead she was trapped in a room with a man who made her feel things she'd never thought herself capable of feeling and a jumbled knot of emotions making her feel even more restless. She resisted the urge to pace like a caged lioness.

Heero got up from the nearby wall he leaned against in order to guard her easily and walked over to her. Relena noted uneasily that he still moved with the soundless ease of a predator. So did that make her his prey? He took the book from her slack and nerveless fingers and closed it firmly, setting it on a nearby table. Then he just stood there in front of her chair, staring down at her as if she were some new breed of creature utterly unknown to man before this point.

After a full minute of intense scrutiny in which Relena refused to back down and they played the 'eye game' where he tried to make her make direct eye contact with him and she'd look at his face but keep herself from looking directly into his eyes, after a minute of that he slowly and deliberately leaned forward and rested his arms on either side of her chair, effectively pinning her there and bringing his face inches from hers. She suddenly felt trapped, his proximity to her was smothering her…

"Could you not stand so close please," she requested in a voice that came out surprisingly level instead of being the squeak she expected it.

"Why does it bother you?" he asked her, his tone betrayed nothing, not amusement, not offense not even curiosity. His gaze was intense as the sun at midday in the sahhara desert. Relena would have shrunk away from him but she refused to let him rattle her cage.

"It would bother anyone. People need personal distance. You of all people know what personal distance is."

"And why would you say that?"

Relena glanced quickly at him to see if she'd inadvertently offended him, but his face was as devoid of expression as it had been a moment earlier. 

"Because you like it… lots of it," she answered honestly. That had been her observance of him at least; he was a person who liked his space. The fewer people there were around to bother him, the more content he was. 

That humming vibrancy sparkled in the air around them both again. Relena didn't know what it was… it felt like a strange yet implacable force, invisible, intangible yet everywhere was pulling at her, pulling at the both of them like a pin to a magnet. She could sense his heart, the beautiful fountain of fire beneath a cool sheet of ice. She could feel it calling at her. It made her want to take her hesitant hand from her lap and touch his cheek, just to see what would happen… She slowly started gathering her courage when

"Hiya Buddy-boy!" Duo said exuberantly as he poked his head into the room. Heero looked over in annoyance at the sudden intruder and Duo grinned wickedly. 

"Oops, I'm not interrupting nothin' am I?" he asked of her as Heero casually leaned against one arm of her chair in a guard position.

"Just my book," Relena answered in a voice that amazed her with its steadiness. "And I wasn't really reading it anyway."

"Oh, good. That crispy girl from the lab's all healed up. Oh, and her partner wants to talk with you Heero about the security net around this place. He said something about making a few modifications to help hold off some kind of attack by those assassins in case one comes before the weird chick with the swords can kill it. They're eating right now and they're almost done. Hunter said you could drop by anytime and the girl told us she'd be in her rooms with her blades."

"Maybe she needs some assistance, I'd be a pretty ungrateful host if I didn't see if she was alright," said Relena all but leaping out of her chair. "I'll just see if she's in her quarters then." And she was out the door faster than she could say Total Pacifism. Duo turned to his comrade in arms with a knowing look on his face.

"So, Heero buddy, I see it didn't take you long after being in the Princess's company once more to start putting the moves on her," he said with his customary innuendo. "Deny it all you like but I have eyes with which to see and its as plain as day. You risk your neck without a thought every time she's in trouble; if that isn't infatuation I don't know what is."

"You should speak," Heero muttered irately.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Duo demanded.

Heero just graced him with one of his Looks and proceeded out of the room to see what the newest thorn in his side wanted of him.

*

"Miss Nightheart," said Relena a little hesitantly from her doorway. Nightheart sat hunched over one of her fine Longblades, honing the edge. A good warrior took care of her weapons and Nightheart was conscientious about that. There came the musical shing, shing as she steadily worked the edge of the blade with her stone.

"I do not recall giving you permission to address me by my name. You may call me Executioner," Nightheart said in a voice colored with disapproval.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude; it's just that Hunter calls you by your name all the time."

"He is the only one that I allow to do so. Everyone else may call me by my title or not at all."

"Oh. I'm sorry if I offended you," Relena said apologetically.

"It's no offense. What is it that you wanted?"

"I came to see if you were comfortable, if there was anything you might need?" Relena said.

"I require nothing. I did, however, wish to speak with you about something."

Relena blinked in surprise. What would the woman before her, who obviously was strong enough and powerful enough to go where she wanted to and do what she wanted without anyone ever telling her no, or that she was too weak or too helpless to take care of herself without protection. What could she possibly want with Relena?

"What is it you wished to speak with me about?" Relena asked, watching the Executioner from another world as she methodically sharpened her blade with the unconscious ease of long practice.

"I had lunch with Hunter. At his recommendation I took a look around these grounds. I do not think they could have possibly chosen a worse place as a safe haven. The area, even with its outside wall, is far too open. I recommend that you be moved to a safer location and that proper security measures, ones designed to defend against Nightsiders, be put in place. However, you will be vulnerable to attack while you are in transit. Due to my injuries I find that I have been 'put on a leash' so to speak so I will stay here to guard you for the time being. Nightsider activity will not cease while I am not hunting them however. My guess is that they will be gathering their strength to either attack you as their primary target or draw me out and try to rid themselves of my threat."

Relena raised an eyebrow. That was probably the most she'd heard out of the Executioner since she had met her. The information she dropped was certainly useful, it had not occurred to Relena that Nightheart herself would be a target for the Assassins. It made sense, she did hunt the creatures after all, it was only natural that they'd have some hard feelings toward her. 

"Where is this new safe-house likely to be?"

"I don't know, Hunter is discussing the matter with the rest of your security detail."

* 

"…Not going anywhere," Heero said flatly, both his arms braced on the table facing off with the too-handsome interloper trying to tell him how to protect Relena.

"And I'm telling _you that she's going to be vulnerable if she's kept here," Hunter countered, frowning. "I know you're pretty hot stuff when it comes to fighting enemies you're familiar with, but the Nightsider Assassins are in a league all of their own; and I mean that quite literally."_

"I will not risk exposing her to attack by removing her from these grounds. I have already cased these grounds and checked the system. It's operating at maximum capacity and there have been no faults detected."

"It doesn't need faults Heero. Based on even our own technology, the security system you have installed in this place amounts to shoestring and bubblegum. No offense," he said over his shoulder at Quatre, who was also there at the meeting along with Noin, Sally, Duo, Trowa, Zechs, and Wufei. 

"None taken," Quatre said nibbling on a scone. "However Heero… Mister Hunter may indeed have a point."

To his credit, Hunter showed no signs of being an unbearable winner when someone sided with him. He didn't even smirk. When Hunter got down to business he allowed nothing to distract him and was thorough and meticulous in his work. Right then, his job required that his charge be moved to another and better facility, and to do that he required the consent and/or cooperation of the team he'd been assigned to work with.

"How so?" Heero growled, not taking his gaze away from his unexpected new rival.

"These new predators or assassins or whatever aren't even from our world," Quatre said. "What's worse is that they aren't even normal for their _own world. We have zero experience in dealing with them and their powers, so it would be wisest to follow the advice of someone who does have experience. The Executioner has been put on temporary sick-leave but that does not mean she's an invalid, in fact Doctor Ishora has assured me that all of her powers and abilities remain intact; and I'm quite certain she wouldn't have any problems with providing an escort service for Miss Relena when we take her to a new safe-house."_

"When?" Heero said, turning to face his compatriot. 

"Keep in mind that I am a strategic thinker," Quatre pointed out as both an answer to Heeros unspoken query 'why the hell wasn't I consulted about this when the decision was being made?' and as a preface to his next words. "And from a strictly strategic point of view, Hunter's argument is a valid one."

"Exposure of the target is a valid argument?" he stated. "Unacceptable."

"No, what he said about this place being too open is a valid argument. I chose this place as a safe-house because I wasn't certain what we were dealing with and I wanted a safe-house with a lot of exits, just in case. I also did not want Miss Relena feeling like a prisoner so I chose a place that would have pleasant surroundings so she would feel more comfortable and at home here. Now that I have a firmer grasp of the situation, I think that moving her to a fortress built for protection and defense is advisable."

"And with the Executioner herself to guard Miss Relena while she is vulnerable during transit, she's as safe as it's possible to make her," interjected Sally. 

"We have no evidence that the other Nightsiders know where this place is," Heero pointed out. "Also, this safehouse was chosen for its close proximity to the Alternigate, so that access could be monitored and Relena could be taken across the gate in case things got out of hand here. It is dangerous to change strategies abruptly in the middle of a battle and risky to parade the target out under the noses of the ones after her life."

"There is also something to be said for the use of tactics and the discarding of unsound plans when situations do not meet expectations. You're a soldier, surely you have learned to be flexible in the heat of battle," Hunter said, appealing to Heero's sound soldier instincts in order to get the stubborn man to be more reasonable. Hunter had the sneaking suspicion that fully half of Heero's dislike of Hunter's plan stemmed from a dislike of Hunter himself. Heero's dislike was not entirely unfounded given that Hunter could be perverse and irritating with the mood moved him, but now was not the time for that. However emotions rarely responded to logic. Heero didn't like Hunter because he saw Hunter as a threat to him somehow.

"I have," Heero allowed. "And the defensive capabilities of this safe-house may indeed be inadequate; however there are no truly adequate ones nearby. We should consolidate our defenses here since our offensive approach to ridding ourselves of the threat is on temporary stand-by."

"I've seen the technology that these Nightsiders are accustomed to dealing with," Sally spoke up for the first time. "It is years, _generations_, far advanced from our own. I don't think that anything we consolidate in a poorly defensible area is going to do any good at all. Nightheart herself has told mentioned that Nightsiders have ways and ways of getting around their own Alternity's technology; I really don't think that our own will be any threat whatsoever to them."

"I won't allow you to endanger her life by dangling Relena out on the end of a line like fish bait," Heero gritted, the feeling of protectiveness rose from within him and his eyes flashed with dislike at the striking intruder from another world.

"It's not my intention to use the girl as bait, you bloody stubborn kresh'tak," Hunter snapped in annoyance. He was prevented from finishing saying 'and if you would haul your own bloody head out of your bloody ass you would realize this!' by the sound of a scream coming from another room.

"Relena!" Heero was on his feet and out the door in an instant the rest following hot on his heels.

*

Relena had interrupted Nighthearts woolgathering as she sharpened her Kai'rrin Longblade. The usual dilemmas and questions that always plagued her after a kill were chasing themselves around in her head.

Is what I do righteous? I hunt down other Nightsiders and use their life energies and the life energies they have gathered from others to feed my own Symbiont and bolster my own powers. If I don't they will continue to hunt down and kill other human beings because they need to live. It is not self defense, I need their energies to keep on living. I protect the weak because Normals are too weak to defend themselves against the predator they themselves created. Hunter tries to say he is my partner, that he wants to fight beside me, but to be honest he is only a Normal no matter how well he shoots and how expertly he pilots. I must protect him, but what gives me the right to defend the weak against the Nightsiders? Nightsiders are my enemies, but they are also the victims; like me, they did not ask to be made into what they are so what gives me the right to kill them?

"I don't know, Hunter is discussing the matter with the rest of your security detail," Nightheart said in answer to the query that Relena had just made, while still sharpening her blade. "I assume this means you will soon be leaving for a place that is vastly more defensible than this one."

"Leaving for a place that is vastly more like a prison you mean," Relena grumbled. Nightheart the Executioner looked up at her with her unreadable obsidian-dark eyes.

"If it is like a prison, you should be grateful that it is a place that is designed to protect you, and not to hold you in so that you can be used in experiments. However, I am well aware that feelings and emotions rarely ever respond to the word should."

Relena looked curiously at the warrior in black light-armor before her. Nightheart bent back over her blade, obviously dismissing Relena.

"How did you get turned into what you are now?" Relena asked. She had not been brought up to ask such impertinent questions (it was more than impertinent, it was downright intrusive!) but the matter was simply driving her mad. She'd gotten the explanation about what a Nightsider was and all of that, but how had Nightheart come to be hunting her own kind when all of the others lost their humanity?

"I was taken from the streets because I had no one who would miss me and sent to a secret Committee research facility called an 'Institute' on Mars," Nightheart said plainly. "That's where I was turned."

"Why do you hunt your own kind?"

"Nightsiders are not 'my kind.' They may have my same abilities but they will never be my kind. They are a threat and they need to be eradicated. All of them."

Relena looked over at the Executioner, afraid that she had offended her, but when she studied Nightheart's face staring down at the well honed blade cradled on her lap all she saw was a very young woman with a terrible burden. It was then that Relena realized that with these wonderful powers Nightheart had came the appalling price of being responsible for the deaths of what might be hundreds of people and also the protection and safeguarding of thousands more. Every vampire needed a victim, and every victim was an innocent life lost due to Nightheart not being there fast enough to save them.

"What about yourself?" Relena asked. "Is there any way to reverse the whatever-it-was they did to you?"  There was only the uncomfortable, hostile semi-silence of Nightheart sharpening the long curved blade on her lap.

"No. Not as yet, perhaps not ever," was Nighthearts response. 

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

"Well what happens when you finally _do kill them all?" Relena pursued._

"That depends. If there is a cure by then, I may seek it to rid myself of my condition. If not… Then I will naturally end my own life before I become a threat."

"You sound like you don't care whether you loose your life or not. Are all you warriors and soldiers all the same? Have you no value on your own life?! Don't any of you realize that there are people who find your life precious?!" Relena demanded passionately. Nightheart looked up in mild surprise at the young woman's outburst, but only said 

"My people are warriors and it is in my blood to fight and to protect. I will defend the weak, even against myself."

Relena looked for a way to get past the woman's shield of apathy but decided she really didn't want to pick a fight with a perfect stranger; especially not one who was here to guard her life. Instead she said

"So what's the story with you and Hunter, huh? Are the two of you involved?"

"He is my partner. We work together."

"How long have you two been partners then? Do you dislike him?" Relena asked. She got the feeling from Hunter that his partner sometime saw him as an encumbrance. If Relena were given someone that cute to work with she certainly wouldn't be trying to push him away that was for damn certain.

"Among my people it is considered rude to ask personal questions," Nightheart said stiffly.

"Your people? You mean you come from a different culture than your partner does?" Relena asked. 

Damnit, she was bored. There was nothing she could do about others deciding her own fortune, there was nothing she could do about this strange mess of emotions involving Heero, but she could at least try to get some small satisfaction out of life. Nightheart seemed like she could be a nice enough girl, once you got past the whole warrior persona.

"Hunter's and my own cultures are quite different," Nightheart said uneasily. She seemed a little nervous about discussing it. Relena got even more curious, as was her nature. It was a simple thing with her, her curiosity. Relena loved the walk the path that was hidden. If there was a mystery or an enigma that crossed her path Relena loved nothing more than to probe its depths. Nightheart was a mystery now.

"Really? How different?"

"Very different," was Nightheart's short reply. Then she chose to elaborate a little with

"I often do not understand Outworlders. Their patterns of thought are completely different from what I have grown up with."

"Who are your people then?"

"I could tell you, but then I would quite literally have to kill you. No Outworlders are to know anything about The People," said Nightheart. 

That was one of the difficulties Nightheart had with her partner, he was possessed of all the curiosity and mischief of an entire sack full of raccoons. From the very first day they had met onward, he was constantly trying to crack her shell, get her to tell him everything about herself. What Hunter did not understand was that Nightheart was a closed-off individual for a reason. She did it to protect him; it was taboo in her culture (which had a severe aversion for Outworlders and anything having to do with them) to speak of The People or Homeland or the even hint at any of the secrets they protected. It would result not just in her own death, but in Hunter's as well. Generation after generation her people had fought and died to keep Homeland from being invaded by Outworlders (she had discovered that it wasn't all outworlders, but only a few who were called Pirates who had been attacking her precious homeland in order to gain the knowledge they kept secret). Whole families, even entire tribes could be and often were wiped out in a single pirate attack, either by the hands of the enemy, or they were given an honorable death by their family members or comrades to keep them from being captured and taken to the Outworlds where Homeland might be put in peril if they learned the secrets The People guarded. No, better that her partner see her as aloof, better for all concerned that he never learn where she came from. She would best protect him by pushing him away and thereby keeping him from the dangerous knowledge she protected.

But why would the _Ki'Shai__ An'ah Ven tie us together like this? Why oh why am I Bonded to an Outworlder? Nightheart wondered, not for the first time. The girl Relena was still looking at her in curiosity. Nightheart did her best to ignore her in hopes she would go away, it worked with most others; all but the most determined eventually gave up on trying to get to know her. Hunter was still there, but he was a special case. He was always a special case._

"And The People are not Nightsiders, right?" Relena asked, deliberately trying to provoke a response. Now she knew what Dorothy saw in goading Relena, this was actually somewhat fun!

Nightheart looked insulted, so insulted she was surprised into an answer

"Of course not!" she said, offended. Then she realized that she had just inadvertently given away a small morsel of information by default. It was a trivial thing, but a lot of trivial things could mount up to some interesting conclusions sometimes.

"So now that I know that, you might just have to kill me," Relena said challengingly. Oh how she loved this game, this game within a game. Relena knew something she wasn't supposed to, Nightheart was a person who killed for a living who didn't want her knowing what she wasn't supposed to know.

"I have given my word to defend your life," Nightheart said awkwardly, frowning at the position she now found herself in with her oaths conflicting with each other. On one hand there was the fact that she'd given her word to protect the Outworlder girl's life, on the other hand there was the far more ingrained imperative to protect the lives of her people by destroying any and all persons who might hold any sort of knowledge about Homeland. Nightheart would simply have to erase all memory of this conversation from her pretty little blonde head. 

"You are entirely too inquisitive for your own good," Nightheart warned.

"So I have been told," Relena said easily. "Besides, it doesn't matter whether I know or not. This isn't your dimension, and my knowledge couldn't possibly harm you. You could tell me anything and everything and it would make no impact upon your life or the lives of The People you evidently care so much about."

"I had not thought of that," she said after pondering for a bit. "I have had secrecy ingrained into me from before I could walk. No Outworlders are to know anything about Homeland or The People." Nightheart sounded a bit like she was reciting a litany. Then she said a long string of words in a language Relena did not understand, it wasn't Arabic, nor was it German or even any of the romance languages, it didn't sound Japanese either. It had an almost liquid smoky sound to it.

"What does that mean?" Relena asked.

"It means 'that strange Outworlder is too curious for her own good.' " Nightheart said. "I suggest that you go to your room and pack. Most likely they will be preparing to leave soon."

Relena sighed and decided that that was about as much as Nightheart was likely to put up with for the evening. She was sharpening a sword after all… Relena wandered out of the room but at the threshold she suddenly felt a small wave of dizziness sweep over her for a minute. She did not hear Nightheart murmur the word "forget" into the silence.

What had she been talking about with Nightheart just now? Oh yes, they'd been talking about Hunter and the others relocating to a different safe-house… Well, she'd better go and pack.

Nightheart looked regretfully at the departing figure of the young woman in her doorway. She felt bad about extracting their conversation from her memory like that, but it would not harm the girl and Nightheart felt that in the end it would do more good than harm for everyone. Like so much in her life she had to live with thing she might not necessarily like about her powers and ethics she might not agree completely with, but life did not always (or in Nighthearts life really even _often_) allow choices that were entirely ethical.

Relena walked down the hall to her own quarters, reveling in the feeling of going somewhere without being followed. She pushed open the faux-wood door to her room and froze there at the threshold. Her mouth worked silently as her eyes widened in horror and revulsion at what she saw and her mind tried to deny even seeing it. Time slowed down to a crawl as Relena felt the breath stolen from her body by the horror before her.

Blood. Blood everywhere. The salty-coppery smell of blood nearly overpowered her and made her want to retch. There were no body parts that she could see but that fact did not mitigate the horror of it all. Blood. Blood everywhere. Dripping down the walls and soaking the carpet. The wall had a message written on it in the deep crimson liquid, small trails of blood streaming down the walls at the ends of the letters. EXECUTIONER. I CHALLENGE YOU. WE WILL FIGHT AT THE SEASIDE IN FRONT OF THE GRETSTONE MONUMENT. MIDNIGHT. IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO ATTEND, I SHALL RETURN TO DEVOUR THE TARGET. ~SLICER. And, sadistically there was a cheerful smiley face painted at the end of the 'note.' 

 After what seemed like an eternal heartbeat, Relena was finally able to scream.

* * * * * 

End chapter 7

Disclaimer: see chapter one.


End file.
